MARK CAPUANO
PRACTICE ORGANIZATION AND PREPERATIONS
MOON HIGH SCHOOL, PA.
When you get into a presentation
with your own peers it is always a
little touchy. But Coach Earl Cek
called me and asked me if I would
lecture this year. He has been bug-
ging me for a few years. He said “We
want you to do a presentation for
the Coach of the Year Clinic.” I
have been dodging him for years. He
asked me what I would like to talk
about.
I thought maybe I could do something
on defense because that is the side
of the football I coach. I told him
I could talk about defensive end
plays on the 50-base defense. He
asked me what else I could talk
about. “Well, I can talk about
blitzing schemes, and using differ-
ent fronts out of the 50. We do a
lot on different things on the move.
We move a lot of people around, and
we stunt people in our fronts and so
on.” He said, “What else can you
do?” I said, “Coach I’m running out
of topics.” He said we have people
talking about defense. “Could you
talk about Organization and the
Practice Schedule?” I agreed I would
talk about the things we do in game
preparation each week and how we get
ready for the next opponent.
Speaking here is something that I
have relished. I thought about it
and I concluded that 35 years of
coaching should provide me with some
thoughts on the subject. I have been
a head coach for 18 years. Becoming
a head coach after being an assis-
tant is a big difference. A lot of
things change and there is a lot
more responsibility as a head coach.
All of a sudden you are the guy who
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has to be the organizer. You are the
coach who has to get the practice
times set up and you must schedule
the practices. That is something I
have thought about over the years.
We have been able to do some things
in our situation that have been very
good to us.
If you can get a couple of ideas
from what we do then it will be
worthwhile. I know every presenter
at every clinic will stress this
point. If you could take just one
thing away from this lecture then
that is an accomplishment. Hope-
fully, you will get more than one
idea here.
Football coaches all learn to steal
from other people through game tape
or listening to lectures at clinics.
We get a lot of good ideas listing
to others talk about what they do
that makes their program a success.
So if I can give you a few things of
what we have accomplished at Moon
High School we will all be happy.
I have with me my trusted assistant
and technical assistant, Coach Steve
Smiley. We talked about doing this
presentation in Power Point. I teach
mathematics and I wanted to impress
you by telling you that I know about
Power Point. I never use it in my
classroom, however, I do know about
Power Point. So we decided we were
going to use it today in our
presentation. We got to the clinic
and found out we didn’t have the
right cables to run Power Point, so
we can’t use Power Point. We will
use the old trusty overhead projec-
tor. We did make overhead slides and
they will help with this presenta-
will help with this presentation.
What I want to do is talk about what
we do for preparation our program
for one week. But before we get into
that subject I want to talk about a
few points in our summertime prac-
tice set up.
We have a coaches meeting and we go
about organizing the teams. Coach
Ron Skosnik is our offensive coordi-
nator. Jim Boni coaches our offen-
sive and defensive line. Roy Meanor
works with our defensive backs. Todd
Fuller works with the defensive
backs and wide receivers. Steve
Smiley is our special teams coach
and he works with our linebackers
and tight ends.
We knew that we would have between
50 to 60 players, and we know basi-
cally who would be coming back from
the previous year. We have a pretty
good idea of the players if they
have been working out in the summer.
I want that program to be organized.
I have always been one who has
wanted to be organized.
We use color schemes with our teams.
The first thing we do in our meeting
is to sit down and talk about who
the Red Offense is going to be. That
is our first team offense. Next we
want to decide who our Red Defense
is going to be. We post these teams
up in the locker room. We want our
players to know what teams they are
on so if we call for the Red Team,
they know who that is. If we call
for the White Team they know it is
our second group. They will know who
that is.
As coaches you can waste time by
saying “Give me a guard.” Usually
the wrong kid jumps in at that posi-
tion. Or a kid that you don’t want
to be in there lines up at that po-
sition. So this really helps to or-
ganize the teams and it saves time.
We do this in the summertime. Our
Blue Team is basically made up of
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sophomores, or the younger players.
The Blue Team becomes our scout
team.
One thing we have done over the last
few years is to use different color
practice jerseys. At one time we all
wore white practice jerseys. That is
all we wore for several years. Like
everybody else we had to put the
scrimmage vests on the other players
to distinguish our scout teams. Now
we put the Blue Team in RED practice
jerseys. That has worked out real
well for us. We have the Red Team on
offense vs. the Blue Team. The Blue
Team has on the red jerseys. That
way we don’t have to worry about
getting the scout team to put the
scrimmage vests on. I know you are
going to have some of those kids who
have the red jerseys on that are go-
ing to get moved up to the White
Team and you are going to have to
use some of them on other teams, but
it does save time, overall in the
organization of your team. I wanted
to talk about this point because we
organize this in the summertime.
One other thing that we started a
few years ago was Saturday JV games.
I don’t know when you guys play your
JV games. Traditional JV games are
always played on Monday after school
or on Monday night. We did that for
a lot of years and then the last few
years, I started talking to the
coaches in our conference about
switching to Saturday JV games.
I started trying to get them to
change over to Saturday JV games for
a couple of reasons. I am sure most
of you are probably the same as we
are as far as your practice routine.
One of your hard practice days is
Tuesday. That is a hard work day in
our practice week. We need to have
everybody there for that Tuesday
practice. But what happened to us is
this. If we played a JV game on Mon-
day, we would have 15 kids who would
say they can’t practice on Tuesday
because they are banged up, or they
are hurt, and they are sore.
If you think about it, that is true.
If they played in a game on Friday
night our kids are sore on Saturday
morning. We know that. You know we
are not going to play them a full
game on Saturday. So we decided we
would try to get other teams on our
schedule to play the JV games on
Saturday. It worked well for us.
SATURDAY SCHEDULE
JV GAME HELD
8:00 AM – Coaches Report with game
film.
9:30 AM – Team Reports – Strength
and Running Sessions.
10:00 AM – Players watch game film
with position coaches.
11:00 AM – Players lift weights.
12:00 PM – Players leave.
By doing it this way Monday can be a
work day and you can go out for a
full practice. That is something to
think about if you are not already
doing that. It is an advantage if
you have your whole squad there on
Monday instead of being at a JV
game. This has helped us with the JV
schedule as well.
We start the week of preparation for
our next opponent. This is what we
do at Moon High School. Basically we
work on preparation for the opponent
for the next week.
Again, as I said we start out our
week on Saturday morning at 8:00 AM.
All of the varsity coach’s report
and we start watching our game film
at that time. I would advise you
when your game is over on Friday
night not to look at the tape. Don’t
give into that temptation to put the
game tape on. Go out Friday night
and have a beer or go do something
else. Don’t sit there and watch the
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game tape Friday night. That prac-
tice will eventually get to you. It
is bad enough if you lost the game.
If an official made a bad call you
do not want to see that call again.
What are you going to gain by seeing
the play again that night? Are you
going to call him up at his house
late at night? It is too late be-
cause the game is over. It is not
going to make a difference. Do some-
thing to relax, go home and take it
out on your dog.
On Saturday morning we come in fresh
and watch the film. Some of the
older coaches will come in a bit
earlier than 8:00 AM because we
can’t sleep. I will come in the
coaches’ office about 5:00 AM with
one of my assistants and we will
break down the game tapes. We do
that and it saves us a little time
later. It is something I do because
I can’t sleep on Friday nights after
the game.
The coaches come in and we watch the
game tape. Like a lot of you, we
have an award system. We watch the
tape and we break it down for our
awards. We do that so we can pass
the awards out to the players when
we meet. We make notes of whatever
we are going to change for the week
and so on.
Next the kids report. At 9:30 AM the
team reports and they go out and
loosen up. We go outside to our
track which lies next to our dress-
ing room. We take them out and we do
some stretching and some running.
They may run for a half hour or so,
just to get loosened up from the
game the night before.
Next we show the film to the kids. I
think it is important for the
coaches to see the film before you
show it to the kids. This is very
important. When you show the film to
the kids you can point out certain
things to them. If you have seen the
tape ahead of time you can show cer-
tain points that need to be pointed
out to them.
It is always hard to put a time on
how long it is going to take on the
tapes. It depends on what kind of
game it was the night before. You do
not know how many times you are go-
ing to run the film back on each
play. If we play a JV game then the
JV coaches will have to get ready
for the game. So we lose a couple of
our coaches. Our JV coaches take the
players to the game on Saturday. We
may only have our varsity players to
watch the film.
On Monday when we watch the film, we
do not want to have a room filled
with all our players. The JV players
will go lift weights. They are lift-
ing while the varsity watches the
tape. After we watch the tape the
varsity players go down in the
weight room and lift. We try to get
three days of lifting in each week
with the varsity players. We do that
because we think it is important for
our kids to get in at least three
days a week of lifting so they main-
tain strength. If the JV’s are not
playing a game on Saturday they can
come back to the film room and watch
a previous tape of one of their
games while the varsity is lifting.
At around 12:00 noon the players
leave on Saturday. The coaches will
stay and finish breaking down an-
other tape on our opponents. We get
two tapes from previous games on our
opponents. We also try to get a tape
of the recent game they just played.
So we have three tapes to study our
next opponent. We try to get at
least two of those tapes broken down
on Saturday.
On Sunday we do not meet as a staff.
I have coached with a lot of differ-
ent coaches that did meet on Sunday.
I know everybody is different.
Hardly anybody plays games on Satur-
day in our league. We play all Fri-
day night games. I think you need a
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day off and I think your staff needs
a day off with their family. I think
that is important. It really makes
the wives happy. So we give them a
day off.
What we usually do is this. Our of-
fensive coordinator, Ron Skosnik
might take a film home and look at
it, or he may come back and look at
the film on Sunday. I will take a
film home and break it down on Sun-
day morning at home. When we come
back on Monday we will have all the
film broken down. If it is against a
team we have played previously we
will look at that tape as well. We
have that game broken down from the
year before. So we will have four
games broken down. I may do some of
that at home, but we are not going
to have a meeting of all the coaches
on Sunday. That gives you an ideas
of what we do on Saturday.
Question: “Do you have all your kids
in the room when the coaches are
breaking film down on Saturday?”
We have everybody in the room. The
players are sitting near their posi-
tion coaches. We sit in the room
with the receivers sitting by the
receiving coach, the quarterbacks
are sitting by the quarterback
coach, and the linemen are sitting
by the line coach ready to give them
an excuse for any problem they have.
It is funny when one of the coaches
will ask “Who is that?” Someone will
say “That is me!” The coaches will
yell out, “Who the hell is me?” So
everybody is in the room. The only
time we would be missing coaches is
if we have a JV game.
Question: Do you try to get out of
the film room by 1:00 PM?
We try to wrap everything up by 1:00
P.M. You know we don’t want to make
it too long. All of you know you can
make the meetings a long as you
want. As many of you coaches know
and some of the assistants swear by
their head coach. The head coach can
make that meeting as long as he
wants to make it. You can always
find something to talk about. You
can say whatever you want to say. I
can remember being on a coaching
staff when I was a young coach. We
might be in meetings on Monday
nights until one or two o’clock in
the morning. We were talking about
who we were going to play at right
guard. So you can make it as long as
you want. Our coaches are always
bugging me about getting done on
time.
I was talking about the JV situa-
tion. If you have played a JV game
on Saturday you can have the whole
team at practice on Monday. We can
have a full practice if we want. If
we do not feel we need to work full
speed we can go light in practice.
But we do have the opportunity on
Monday to go out in full pads if
necessary. Most of the time, we do
not have a full practice on Monday
because we really do not have a game
plan of exactly what we want to do
for the upcoming game. We have not
decided what we want to do. But we
do know what we did wrong on Friday
night and we do know what we want to
correct. You always want to have
time to make corrections. You never
have enough time, so we can use this
to work on our special teams and
game day corrections.
MONDAY PRACTICE SCHEDULE
We have a full practice with empha-
sis on individual techniques, spe-
cial teams and game day corrections.
3:00 – Flexibility
3:15 – Individual Defense
3:30 – Individual Offense
3:45 – Water break
3:50 – Special Teams
4:05 – Stunt Review
4:15 – Conditioning
4:30 – Varsity Lift Weights –
Scout Team formation recognition.
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5:00 Coaches prepare game plan. Di-
vide in offensive - defensive units.
7:30 – Scouting report put together.
9:00 – Staff reviews game plans.
In review, on Monday we will go out
at 3:00 PM. After we get on the
field we do flexibility exercises.
As a coaching staff I feel it is im-
portant that you have a practice
schedule and that the coaches try to
stick to that schedule.
Each year some young players’ par-
ents will ask this question. “Coach,
what time is practice over?” I say
“When I blow the whistle.” “Well,
how long is your practice?” Practice
last two hours. They respond, “That
is very good.” Then I tell them
this. “It is two hours, but it might
take us three to get two hours of
good practice in.” I hate that when
somebody tries to pin me down about
practice. They soon learn not to ask
that question anymore.
At 3:15 PM we go into our individual
defensive period. And that is where
we break into defensive groups. We
are going to have linebackers, de-
fensive ends, defensive backs, and
the defensive line. That is how we
break the team up. We have about 15
minutes in this period. Basically in
my group which includes the defen-
sive ends, I am going to talk about
last Friday’s game. I am going to
talk about things they did incor-
rectly. It could be keying reads. If
I know a particular team that we
will be playing in the next game,
and they are a team that runs a lot
of sweep plays, we might work
against the hook block. If they are
going to run a Tight Wing-T offense
we will work against that set. We do
not see that set too often in our
league.
We decide how we are going to play
on defense for the week. How are we
going to beat that double team
block? How are we going to read the
two blockers? How are we going to
play the tight end and the Wing-T
alignment? How are we going to play
against the tight end blocks? We de-
cide how we are going to play for
the upcoming game.
We might do some individual drills.
I am a big believer in tackling
drills. In the season what happens
is this. You drill tackling during
the summer in pre-season practice.
You work on it for two weeks at the
beginning of practice. Then the sea-
son starts. A lot of times, because
you are doing so much preparation
and so much team work, you forget
about the individual techniques. You
forget about the basics of tackling.
So we will go back and put some
tackling drills in our practice
schedule. We do not do a lot of
this, but it is going to be a side-
line tackle drill or a similar
drill. You can never do enough tack-
ling.
Then we go on to individual offense.
We break up into groups of the quar-
ter backs, the running backs, the
receivers, and the offensive line
and tight ends. That is how we break
the team up. They will be with their
individual coach.
Then we work with the special teams.
Coach Steve Smiley is our special
teams Coach. He will talk about what
we do with special teams later. Any
time you put special teams in your
practice schedule you let the kids
know the coaches think special teams
are important.
We work on special teams in all our
practices. If you are a special
team’s player then you know that it
is an important part of our game.
But you can’t just give it lip ser-
vice. You have to actually run the
plays with the special team. You
have to provide practice time for
your special team. We do that in our
practice schedule by working with
our special teams. It could be a
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particular special team, or it could
be a drill on the special teams.
I put the defensive stunt review pe-
riod in a few years ago. We work on
our stunts on defense. We run a 50
defensive package and we use a lot
of multiple fronts. We stunt a lot
from those fronts. Teams that play
us know we bring our linebackers
when we stunt. To do that you must
work on the stunts in practice.
This is how we organize the stunt
review. We come out with the blue
team in the red shirts. They are go-
ing to come out and line up on the
line. We are using a practice field
that is lined. If you don’t have
your practice field lined you need
to think about it. It helps us to
line up on defense. We need the
lines to line up on. We put our guys
down on a knee. We have seven offen-
sive men simulating the offensive
line all down on knees. Now our de-
fense can see the spacing. At 10
yards to the other side we have an-
other group of players down on their
knees. We have our Red Team on one
side of the ball facing the coach.
If I am the coach they are facing
me.
We have the White Team or the second
team, on the other line facing me,
over the ball. We signal our defen-
sive play in to the defense. I will
make the defensive calls and signal
them to the linebackers. The line-
backers will make the call. They are
going to call out the defense to the
team. They make a move call for the
entire defense. All I say is
“Ready.” When I say ready, the two
players that are simulating the cen-
ters can snap the footballs. They
are the blue team players holding
the footballs. They can snap the
ball anytime after I give the
“Ready” call. I just call out the
ready command.
When we are stunting we are watching
the football. I want them coming off
the football. I don’t want them lis-
tening to cadences or to someone
else calling the signals. They are
watching the football. Everybody
watches that football. They must use
peripheral vision to look down the
line. When that ball is snapped we
better get to our primary area, or
to the gap that we are responsible
for. Both teams are running the
stunt at the same time.
By using this drill we have two
teams working and we are not leaving
out our second group. Those players
may be getting into the game and
they need to know what the signals
and stunts are. The second team
linebacker needs to know how to make
the calls. He needs to be able to
read the signals from the coaches.
He needs to know how to make the
calls. This period has been very
good for us. We take about 10 min-
utes or so to go through our stunts
that we are going to use that week.
Both teams are going at the same
time. Since this is a Monday prac-
tice, most of our stunts have been
used for a few games.
Next we go to our conditioning
drills. Then the varsity players are
going to go lift weights. That is
the second time for them to lift
weights that week. The first session
was the Saturday session.
Next is the scout team formation
recognition period. I will run the
scout team. I take them to another
area of the field and I talk about
what the other team is going to run
against us for the game. We talk
about what the other team is running
and what their offensive formations
are and what plays they run. If it
is a Wing-T team or an I-Set team, I
will have to show our kids how to
line up and go over the terminology
we will be using that week. This is
what we do at Moon High School.
Again, you should do what you feel
comfortable with. If this session
helps you, fine.
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I used to make up the opponents
plays on cards so we could run the
plays in practice. You hold up the
cards and everyone looks at it and
they run the play on the card. By
doing that the scout team is not
really learning anything. We need to
teach the young kids about football
because they are our future players.
On the scout team we are going to
use our terminology and we are going
to run the other teams play. But we
are going to call the plays in our
terminology. I am going to run an I-
Pro-Right. Now our kids know they
have to line up in our Pro Right
formation. That is how our players
learn what our Pro-Right formation
is. We use the same terminology that
our offense and defense uses. I call
the play that is similar to our
play.
I call the play and they know the
play I want to run. They must know
how to block and who to block on the
play. They know how to block our 34
Isolation versus the defense. They
know how to do that because they are
linemen. They know where their backs
are lined up against the defense.
The tailback knows he is getting the
ball. The fullback knows on the 30
Isolation he is the lead blocker. He
knows he is going to lead up on the
linebacker. So he is learning our
offense. These players are our fu-
ture team.
A lot of times you can waste a year
working with the scout team. If you
are holding up the cards, the next
year they have no idea what your of-
fense is all about. Our system is
not perfect. But trust me, at the
end of the year there are still a
lot of players who do not know how
to line up in different formations.
I take the scout team and I talk
about formations and plays. I stress
the fact that the scout team quar-
terback is an important player. He
doesn’t like that essential position
but I tell him that everybody that
has played quarterback for us went
through this situation. It is impor-
tant to have a good scout team quar-
terback. He must give our defense a
good look. The better look he can
give us the better we are going to
be on defense. The better we look on
defense the better we are going to
look on offense.
Monday is our game prep day. The
coaches get together and we divide
up. We have six coaches on the var-
sity staff. We split up with three
on offense and three on defense. We
put our plan together. A lot of this
has been done over the weekend with
the offensive coordinator. He has
been thinking about the offense and
I have been thinking about the de-
fense. I am the defensive coordina-
tor, so I have been thinking about
what we are going to do on defense.
I have some ideas of what we should
do. Our other coaches have their
thoughts about what they should do.
We get together and we might look at
some more tapes if we think we need
to look at something special. We do
that during this time period. Steve
Smiley is our special team coach so
he is looking at the other team’s
special team. He is looking at what
they do. He is making the plan for
the special teams. Our staff will
take time somewhere during this ses-
sion to eat.
We put the scouting report together
on Monday night. The defensive staff
is responsible for getting every-
thing together. Other teams may do
the scouting report a little differ-
ent. Some teams have all those com-
puterized reports and the detailed
information.
I still draw up the formations and I
still write the plays down. I have
found by writing the plays down and
drawing the formations for the
scouting report it becomes ingrained
in me. I know what the other team is
doing and I know their tendencies. I
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can see tendencies easier when I do
the scouting report. It helps me to
look at the plays and it helps me to
visualize the plays.
We have the scouting report put to-
gether and then we meet as a staff.
Then the offense and the defense
will get on the board and go over
what we are doing this week. Now
everybody has input on what we are
doing. We are all open for input. If
anybody has suggestions offensively,
they speak up. The offensive coordi-
nator will allow me to put a play in
since I am the head coach. (I think
that is nice of him.) I may put an
offensive play in because I think it
will work this week. He never runs
the play but he tells me that he is
going to think about it. He allows
other coaches to put plays in and so
on.
On defense, someone may have a sug-
gestion at this time. Again, we do
this because we all coach both sides
of the ball. If anybody has input we
go over it at that time. By that
time we are somewhere around 9:00 PM
or later. We try to be finished by
9:30 PM. We would like to be out of
there by 9:30 PM. We have had a long
day by this time.
Next I want to get into the Tuesday
practice. On Tuesday and Wednesday
we call those our hard work days. On
Tuesday we have full practice with
the emphasis on the running game im-
plementation, special teams, and
game day corrections.
TUESDAY PRACTICE SCHEDULE
2:40 – Players dressed in locker
room for the scouting report.
3:10 – Pre Practice.
3:30 – Flexibilities.
3:45 – Punt and Punt Return
3:55 – Individual Defense
4:05 – Individual Offense
4:15 – Group Offense
4:35 – Water
4:40 – Stunt Review
4:50 – Goal Line Offense & Defense
(Two Point Plays)
5:00 – All Up
6:15 – Conditioning Drills
(JV’s lift weights)
7:00 – Coaches set Wednesday Plans
Tuesday and Wednesday are our hard
practice days. We have full practice
with emphasis on the run game on
Tuesday. On Wednesday we are going
to stress the passing game. We try
to break up the practices this way.
Our school is dismissed at 2:15 PM.
I think it is important for your
kids to get into a regimented day.
We talk about having discipline in
football. They expect the team meet-
ing at 2:40 PM. They have to be
dressed from the waist down. If they
have to see the trainer they must
take care of that earlier. At 2:40
PM we pass out the scouting report.
We talk about what we are going to
do out on the field. We tell them
what we are going to do on the game
plan. We do not go into every little
detail because we do not have time.
If there is a major change to be
made on offense or a defensive stunt
to be added, we go over it at that
time. If you need to make changes
you need to show them how you are
going to do it. On offense, if we
have any special formations, or any
special plays that we are putting
in, then we are going to put all
that in and talk about that ahead of
time in the locker room.
Let me go back to the time situa-
tion. We expect our players to be
there at 2:40 PM. If they come to
practice after 2:40 PM they must
have a note from a teacher that ex-
plains why they are late. They can’t
just show up late. They must have a
note from the teacher saying that
they were getting help. They can not
be late because they were hanging
out in the halls. Because our field
house is not beside the school, some
of the kids drive over to the field
house. Years ago I had a rule that
9
you were not allowed to drive to the
field house. If you drove to school
you had to park your car and walk to
the field house, and walk back to
school after practice.
The reason I did this was because
everyone can drive to school. At the
end of the day there are a zillion
cars tying to get out of the parking
lot. There is an accident everyday.
It is ridiculous. Sometimes kids
will be late for practice. They come
up to me and say, “Coach, I had an
accident, or I couldn’t get out of
the parking lot because there was so
much traffic.” You have to make them
responsible to be on time. That is
important.
Our pre practice time starts at 3:10
PM. I don’t know about the coaching
situations at your school but some
of our coaches do not teach at the
high school. Some of our coaches
teach at the middle school. The mid-
dle school kids get out of school
later than the high school. The
coaches can’t get over to the high
school until 3:00 PM. They may not
be teachers and they have other jobs
and can’t be there until 3:30 PM. So
what we have done over the years is
to develop a pre-practice.
Again, this pre practice time is not
just standing around and talking and
telling jokes. They are not just out
there with someone throwing the
football around. Pre practice time
is valuable time. We use this time
in several ways.
On Monday night before we leave we
set up the pre practice form. I set
up the time periods and then each
coach is responsible for that time
slot. The assistant coaches must be
prepared for that session. Each
coach is responsible for setting up
what they want to get done in that
time period. They need to be pre-
pared for that session. As teachers
they have to be prepared and it is
the same with this period.
We may have a certain emphasis on
working together with another group
during that time period. If the
linebackers are going to get to-
gether with the defensive ends then
we have to know in our practice plan
what we are going to work on. So we
put the plan together the day be-
fore. In the pre-practice plan we
have every thing worked out. The
punters are going to punt with the
punt return team. The snappers are
going to work on all snaps. You
never get enough time to work on the
snaps. Our line coach, Jim Boni is a
great guy but he thinks this session
should be five hours long. He is
probably right because what we do in
this period is important. He wants
time anywhere he can get it. This
gives him an opportunity to work
with the line for about 20 minutes.
He can get his whole line together
and start working on the blocking
techniques.
Our ends and other receivers are go-
ing to go down with the quarterbacks
and work. This is not a formal prac-
tice and we are not going 100 per-
cent. We will work on loosening the
quarterbacks up. We have the receiv-
ers run the routes. We are not just
loosening the quarterback up but we
are running particular pass routes
that we are going to emphasize that
week. Some of your receivers are
probably defensive backs so we will
turn around and run some defensive
coverage’s. If we are going to see
Cover 2 that week we can put up a
Cover 2 and run our routes against
them.
You definitely could use this time
to work on your fade route when you
get down on the goal line. You al-
ways have something you can work on.
If our kickers are at practice we
work with them. There a lot of times
when our kicker is a soccer player.
He may not be there on a Tuesday be-
cause they play a lot of games on
Tuesday in soccer. If he is there
you can work on some kickoffs, kick-
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off returns and then work on the ex-
tra points. We work on the extra
point snaps and the hold on the ex-
tra points. The players that are
holders rotate a lot of time with
our quarterbacks. That is what you
do with the pre-practice period.
Sometimes we emphasize a special
team during that period. If we are
going to work on the punt team then
we call out that team and we work on
the punt during that period. This
could be a different special team
each day. Then we blow the whistle
and we go to flex drills.
We usually run a lap around the
field first. Then we get into our
lines and we flex. We use the rubber
bands in the flexibility drills.
Over the years we have used rubber
bands to help us stretch. We got
that from Youngstown State Univer-
sity. I think it really does help in
flexing. The players can run through
the drills with partners. They are
just rubber bands. You can lie on
your back and pull back up. It
really stretches the groin area and
hamstrings.
Then we break up after we have fin-
ished the flexibilities. We come off
the field to the sideline. The field
is lined because the field is used
by the JV and ninth grade teams to
plays games. I blow the whistle and
they sprint off to the sideline and
then we go into our punt and our
punt return on Tuesday. We call out
a punt situation and we run right
out onto the field and line up in
punt formation and kick the foot-
ball. That is what we do. This is
good practice for us. We yell “Punt,
punt, punt,” and everybody runs out,
gets on the ball and is ready to go.
We have the defense set up with the
blue team being the defense and we
punt the football.
The player that catches the punt
places it down on the line. The punt
team runs down to the ball turns
around and we punt it back the other
way. It is kicked back the other
way. Then we try to move the ball
around to different locations on the
field. Then we place the ball deep
back against the goal line. We work
on kicking the ball out of the end
zone. We work on different phases of
the punting game. Sometimes we might
put our two Spikers on one side and
practice kicking the ball deep and
try to down it inside the 5 yard
line.
Then we flip it over and run punt
returns. Punt returns for us are ba-
sically done by our defensive team.
The defensive team lines up at the
50 yard line. Our punt return team
works on setting up a wall right and
a wall left.
Next we go to our individual de-
fense. Again the emphasis is on run.
But it gives you time to work with
your individual defensive positions.
You might work better in groups dur-
ing this time. We might work to-
gether on key drills for the defen-
sive ends and the linebackers.
In the individual offensive period
we break up into individual groups.
Then we do group offense. Now in our
group offense, the difference is
this. When we go to group offense we
have all the interior linemen and we
have a split end, and a tight end.
In other words we have a 7 man front
but we do not have flankers.
The flankers will stay with the
quarterbacks and the other backs.
They may work on counter plays dur-
ing this period.
When we work on the group offense
with the line we do have the split
ends and the tight ends. We work on
our offense just like we did with
our Stunt Review. We have two groups
on offense. We put a ball down and
we have the Red Team. Ten yards
apart we have another ball. They are
ten yards apart. The other team is
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the White Team. They are facing in-
side. We have the defenses on the
other side of the line. We use two
groups if we have enough players
available. We get injuries, players
get sick, and then you end up with
one group. If you have two groups it
is really good because you have both
the Red and White Teams working. The
coach calls out a play and the line-
men make their blocks on the play.
We start from the outside and work
inside. We go over all of the dif-
ferent blocks. Half way through the
period the split ends and the tight
ends might leave us to go down and
work with the quarterbacks and the
backs.
Then we have the water break. After
the water break we do the stunt re-
view. I have talked about that
drill. We do it again each day. Now
we may have some new stuff in be-
cause we now have our game plan. We
might be putting some new things in
the game plan.
Because Tuesday is a run day we work
on our goal line. We put the ball
down on the 10 yard line and we are
on offense. We run our goal line
package for that game. We go over
our Two Point plays. We are going
against the defense for four to six
plays
Then we turn around and go on the
defensive. We put the ball on the
ten yard line. We run the defense we
are going to be using that week.
Then we move the ball down inside
the ten yard line. We move it from
the 10, to the 8, to the 5, and then
we put it inside the 2 yard line.
Then I will run the other teams Two
Point plays against our defense. We
must decide what we want to do
against their Two Point play. We
have that defense ready. Sometimes
we will kick the extra point.
Then we call the “All Up” and hope-
fully we are on the time schedule. I
am trying to make them think it is
5:00 PM but it is really about 5:20
PM. Because the offensive line coach
did not have enough time to cover
everything he wanted to cover. So we
are in the “All Up” period. We start
on the offensive side of the ball.
We have two groups running. Again,
this is organization. We have the
Red and the White Teams in the hud-
dle and the Blue Team on defense.
And the defense does have on the
shields for defense. Up front the
defenders have the shields.
We run one play at the defense.
Sometimes we run the same play by
both offensive teams. At other times
we run two different plays. The
White Team has the tendency to make
the same mistake the Red Team makes
if we run the same play. They will
watch the Red Team run the play and
then they will run the play the same
way. If the Red Team makes a mis-
take, guess what? The White Team
will make the same mistake. They
just look to see what the man did in
front of him.
By doing that they are not really
learning the play. So I try to tell
the coach in charge of the White
Team to run a few different plays so
they have to learn the offense. We
try to get as much accomplished as
we can in this time period. We try
to go as fast as we can on the
drill.
We are trying to get our offense to
concentrate on the run on Tuesday.
We will move the ball up and down
the field. We do not keep the ball
in one spot. We move the ball and we
coach on the run. We move it to the
hash marks and to the center of the
field.
When we get down toward the end zone
I will yell “Field Goal - Field
Goal.” The field goal team has to
run out there and kick the ball.
They run out on the field and kick
the field goal. The field goal team
has to be ready and the kicker has
12
to be ready to kick the field goal.
We might yell out “Punt Team - Punt
Team.” Again this is to emphasize to
the special teams and to keep the
kids thinking about special teams.
After we kick the field goal we turn
around and come back up the field.
And that is the team offense.
Then we go to defense in our “All
Up” period. This is something I
started a few years ago. I have
talked about the scout team, which I
run. I have them use our terminology
for the scout team plays. Again I
don’t use the cards with the scout
team. What I started doing some
years ago was to script the plays of
the other team on offense. You might
want to try this. It has been good
for us for a couple of reasons. It
organizes your practice. If you
script the other teams’ plays, you
find out a lot about the other team.
The most plays we script will be
about 20 plays for their team. I
will write down the situation that
will lead to that first down. On
first and ten I tell the defense the
situation. “It is first and ten.”
All of the coaches know the play be-
ing called. They are watching their
positions.
Next we work on the defense we are
going to run. One of the coaches
will signal in the defense to the
linebackers. We run the play and
come back to the huddle. Now it is
“2nd and 8 to go for the first
down.” It may be second and 12 to go
for the first down. Now we are going
to start thinking 2nd & 12, what are
they going to run in this situation?
We are thinking Draw or Screen Pass.
The defensive team must start think-
ing about different situations. Then
we may work on any special plays our
opponents like to run.
They may come out of the huddle real
quick. We must be ready to get in
and out of our defensive huddle. I
have to teach the scout team to go
on “Down.” The offense may run the
unbalanced line. We must be ready to
read the unbalanced line. If they do
run the unbalanced line we must go
over how we are going to cover the
unbalanced line.
We are going to run 20 plays against
our defense with the plays scripted.
We will rotate in some of our second
team players. We try to keep our
first team players in for the major-
ity of the plays but some of the
subs can rotate. I tell the position
coach it is up to them as far as us-
ing the subs. They can rotate the
subs, but not until we have run
about 10 plays. This has helped us
as far as being organized.
Next we go back at the end of the
day and see if we want to change
anything. Do we want to change any-
thing on defense? Do we want to do
anything different? Do we want to
put in another play? “What do they
like to do on 2nd & 3rd downs? What do
they like to do on 1st and 10?”
We call out “Turnover, Turnover.”
Our team just had a turnover. A lot
of teams try to score real quickly
when they get a turnover, especially
with the ball in their territory.
So, we make that note. That is our
defensive period.
Then of course at 6:15 PM or some-
where around that time we start our
conditioning. We mix the drills up
on conditioning. We do what we call
our “Aerobic Run”. We put the
coaches out on 4 corners of a
square. We have half of the team
consisting of all the skilled people
at one corner of the square. At the
other corner we have all the line-
men. The players must run for about
2 minutes. Actually, they run four
laps around the outside of the
coaches.
They run a total of about 50 yards.
They are running for times. It is an
“Aerobic Run” because we are spread
13
out in about a 50 yard square. So we
say it is more of an “Aerobic Run.”
We do different drills for condi-
tioning in that period.
On Tuesday our JV’s lift weights.
Then we go inside and practice is
over. After the players are gone we
go in as a staff and talk about
Wednesday’s practice. We need to be
prepared for the next day. This is
when we work on the schedule for the
next day. That is Tuesday practice.
Question: Do the JV’s run at condi-
tioning or do they go in and start
their weight lifting?
No! They condition too. They would
like to skip the running but we make
them run too.
Let me move to Wednesday and the
practice schedule. On Wednesday the
emphasis is on our passing game. We
still start at 2:40 PM. At that time
they have to be in the locker room
as they did on Tuesday. They must be
dressed from the waist down. And now
we are talking about our opponent’s
film. We are looking at our next op-
ponent and we are going to show them
as much tape as we can. We are going
to show them both sides of the ball.
We show them some of the plays we
feel they need to see. It is a great
opportunity for them to see what the
opponents are doing. Then we have
our pre practice.
WEDNESDAY PRACTICE
It is a full practice with emphasis
on the passing game implementation
and special teams.
2:40 – Players dressed for film.
3:10 – Pre Practice.
3:30 – Flexibilities.
3:45 – Field Goals/Extra Points.
3:55 – Pass Skelly – Defense.
4:10 – Pass Skelly – Offense.
4:25 – Water.
4:30 – Stunt Review.
4:40 – All UP (Emphasis on Pass)
6:00 – Conditioning – Varsity Lift.
6:30 – Coaches Review Game Plan.
We might change some of the schedule
around on the pre practice schedule.
We may just review some of the other
drills. Then at 3:30 we blow the
whistle and flex. At 3:45 we work on
our field goal and extra points.
At 3:55 PM we do our defensive pass
skeleton drill. We are on defense
and we have all the perimeter peo-
ple. That is all 7 people on de-
fense. We have our defensive ends,
our linebackers, and our defensive
backs. The defensive line coach has
his players working on defense.
We have them working totally on the
plays that I have scripted for that
session. I run the scout team
against our defense and against our
pass offense. We work on adjustments
we are going to make in the secon-
dary. Then we go into pass skelly
offense and we run two groups. We
have the Red Team and the White Team
against the Blue team on defense. We
may have one team running against
man cover team and another team run
against a 3-4 look defense with zone
coverage.
At 4:30 PM we run our stunt review
session. We do a lot of that because
I want to make sure on Friday night
that they know what to do. I don’t
want anybody telling me they thought
they called one thing and they were
not sure what to do. I don’t want
them saying “I thought it was this.”
They may have looped instead of
slanting. You will always get caught
when a player runs the wrong play.
So we want to make sure we know what
we are doing.
Then it is “All Up” again. It is
pretty much the same as we did the
day before. It may be with more em-
phasis on passing. On Wednesday we
do one thing different after we go
through most of the offense. We have
the defensive kids get rid of the
14
shields. We go live on the pass
rush. We go live pass offense be-
cause the linemen need to see the
defense live. They need to know who
they are blocking. The quarterback
needs somebody in his face. The re-
ceivers need a defender up on them
bumping them. We do that for about
10 minutes.
On defense, I have always been a be-
liever that the defense must go full
speed. I don’t know how you run your
“Thud” defense. It is really hard to
run the “Thud” on defense if we are
going half speed and we are running
stunts. You can’t go half speed on
stunts. I don’t know how you do
that? You really have to go full
speed when you stunt. We don’t want
our defense killing people because
they may be our second or third team
quarterback, or the tailback. But at
the same time we want kids running
hard. We want them to simulate game
situations. So we always say it is
live up front which means if you are
stunting you better get off the ball
100 percent. So it is live up front.
If the defense gets to the quarter-
back we tell them to just grab the
quarterback. We do not want the de-
fender to bury his helmet in the
quarterbacks head. But, defensively
you better learn how to get after
the football.
If we are running the sweep, I want
to see the corners over there run-
ning to the football. Everyone must
run the proper pursuit angles. On
Friday night it is too late to teach
the proper angles. We are always go-
ing live when we are on defense at
the end of the drill.
Then we work on conditioning again.
The varsity works on weights again
on Wednesday night. That will be
their third lift in the week. Some-
times that is tough because they
have put in a full day and their
practice does not end 6:00 PM on
Wednesday. It’s probably like 6:30
PM or 6:45 PM or even 7:00 PM. It is
getting kind of late and they go in-
side and the varsity gets to lift
weights. It is not a full blowout
like we do in the off season. The
coaches are getting ready for the
next days practice. We are working
on what we are going to do in our
review the next day. We decided if
we are going to make any changes for
the game.
Questions: Is the “All Up” time just
offense?
No, it’s everything, but we have
more emphasis on passing. On Tuesday
the emphasis was on running. We are
still going to review a lot of our
run offense. We are just going to
cut down on the number of plays we
run. We still are going to review
some plays but we are going to do
more of our pass offense. We are not
a pass team either. We are going to
run the ball 60-70 percent of the
time. If we could run the ball every
play we would do it. But we will
throw the football. A lot of our
passes are Play Action Passes. We
are going to run to set up the pass.
We definitely will throw the foot-
ball.
Question: When you run the Pass
Skelly Drill is the offensive line
working on pass protection.
Yes, that is right. Most of the
times they are working on pass pro-
tection techniques. We work on
screen passes on Wednesday. In our
conditioning drills on Wednesday we
will run a lot of screen passing
drills.
We have the team come from the side-
line and run a screen pass. They
have to sprint down the field all
the way to the end zone. The Red
Team will start 40 yards from the
end zone and they have to sprint to
the end zone. They come back and
then we have our White Team go next.
We have them run a screen play and
15
they have to run all the way to the
end zone and then jog back. Then the
White Team comes out and runs a
screen play and they run into the
end zone. The Red Team comes back
out and runs the screen play. We do
it for two reasons. First, we are
working on our screen passes. We are
tightening up our screens. We just
do it with Red and White Teams be-
cause we put the Blue Team on de-
fense. We want somebody for them to
block against. We practice our
screens this way. We think that is a
good way to condition.
Question: On your “All Up” do you
work more on offense or defense.
We always have a coach that has a
watch handy. That coach always tells
me, “Coach we have been on this
drill 15 minutes.” It would be nice
if you could say that you are going
to go for one half of an hour but it
is probably more than that. At the
end of the day we may have run about
10 minutes longer on the offense.
And that is because I am the head
coach. So, I can do that. But there
is always that battle about how much
time we have. Somewhere along the
line I will have to say “Coach we
have to wrap it up here.”
Question: Do you basically run
through both offense and defense
every day of practice, rather than
offense on one day and defense on
another?
Right! I listened to George Novak a
lot last year. I got all fired up
and I said “We are going to two pla-
toon next year. We are going to do
this because I think we can do it.
We can divide the staff and run of-
fensive and defensive teams.”
We almost came into the season try-
ing to two platoon. But we had about
60 kids last year at Moon High
School. With the injuries we ended
up practicing with only about 45
players. If you only have 45 kids it
makes it hard to platoon. I know
that some teams can do that but we
did not feel we could do it last
year. It definitely would save a lot
of practice time.
That is why I think it is important
that you have a practice plan and
you try to stick with it. In having
the players go on both sides of the
ball, you try to get to everything
in practice. You do not make it too
long of a practice that way. Some-
times you have to cut out some other
areas in practice. That is why we
place the emphasis on the run on
Tuesday and the passing on Wednes-
day. We are not doing the same
things all of the time. We try to
get our special teams work in prac-
tice as well.
Question: Do you have any time sav-
ers for your stunts? Also, how do
you decide who will wear the scrim-
mage vest when you work on pass
skeleton drills? Do you spend a lot
of time setting up the scout team?
I don’t know if we have any time
savers or not. When we run pass
skelly we use dots to simulate the
line. We put them down to indicate
the spacing for the line. But we
just throw five of the yellow dots
down on the ground to let the re-
ceivers know where to line up. We
run two groups at a time. As one
team is coming back to the huddle
the other team gets set to go. One
thing you have to tell your kids
when you are in the pass skeleton
drill is they must bring a ball up
to the line with them. The receivers
need to bring the stinking ball back
to the huddle. You do not want to be
in the huddle with only one foot-
ball.
When we run two groups we do not
move around a lot. Our main thing is
that we want to line up and execute
on the pass skelly drill. I don’t
know if there is anything differ-
ently in that drill that we do
16
Now, defensively I script the plays.
I don’t want to be out there trying
to decide what play to run. I make
sure we have the plays all lined up
to run when we are on defense. That
saves a lot for us. And if we are
running the pass skelly drill I am
going to have eight pass plays or we
may only have six pass plays. The
number of passes we work on all de-
pends on who we are playing.
Coach Steve Smiley is going to come
up and talk about Thursday practice
because Thursday is our special team
day. He covers what we do to organ-
ize the special teams.
COACH STEVE SMILEY
You guys are probably wondering who
the hell is this guy and why he is
up here talking. Don’t worry because
I feel the same way as you do. When
the moderator introduced Coach “Cap”
he mentioned how well he is re-
spected throughout our conference. I
grew up in New Brighton and I played
for Coach Ricco and I am a Double A
guy. I have learned how truly re-
spected he is.
Let me tell you a story about how he
got so respected. A few years ago
Coach Ricco and Coach Hamilton from
Black Hawk High and Coach Cap went
to NYC to a coaching convention.
They got one of those old fashion
horse and buggy type carts with a
horses pulling them in the cart.
They are going over to the conven-
tion.
They go along and suddenly the damn
horse hits a pothole. Coach Cap
yells out, “Hey, That’s a ONE!” They
go along a little more and the horse
hits another pothole. Boom! Coach
Cap yells out, “Hey you SOB! That’s
a TWO!” A couple of blocks later the
horse hits a pedestrian. Coach Cap
gets out of the cart and yells, “You
stupid horse! That’s a THREE!” He
walks over and pulls out a gun and
shoots the horse.
Coach Ricco and Coach Hamilton look
at each other and shrug their shoul-
ders. They don’t have a clue what is
going on. Coach Cap comes back and
gets in the cart. Coach Hamilton,
being the older of the two said,
“Hey Coach Cap, what the hell was
that for?” Coach Cap looked at him
and said “That’s a ONE!” That is the
kind of respect he has now.
What I have up on the overhead is
the Thursday practice. I am going to
go over some special team material
today. And just like the situation
here today, Coach Cap is in charge
of everything until the beginning of
Thursday. Then he turns it over to
me, for a while.
THURSDAY PRACTICE
Thursday is a full practice with an
emphasis on special teams, game
situations and the Two-Minute-
Offense.
2:40 – Finish film on our opponent.
3:00 – Flexibility.
3:15 – Special Teams:
Kickoff, Kickoff Returns, Punt, Punt
Returns, Field Goals, Extra Point,
Block Teams.)
4:00 – Team Offense.
4:30 – Team Defense.
5:00 – Two-Minute-Offense.
5:30 – Coaches prepare game plan.
We divide into offense and defense
with players in their shoulder pads
and thigh pads in shorts or sweats.
We get our players dresses out at
2:40 PM. I am one of the middle
school teachers so I do not get
there until about 3:00 to 3:05 PM.
Coach Cap will watch the second half
of the tape on an opponent’s game in
the film session.
When the players are going out on
the field they have a fresh idea in
their mind of the team we are going
to be playing. We do a 15 minute
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flex period. Right after that we run
a few agility drills in preparation
for the game the next day. We do a
real simulation of what is going on
in a game.
We come out of that session and go
into our special teams period. The
special team period lasts about an
hour.
I have a checklist that I have lami-
nated so I can write on it. Each
week I bring my marker out with me
and I check the items off the list
after we complete them.
SPECIAL TEAMS CHECKLIST
1. Kickoff
2. Onside Kickoff
Right, Left, Stampede
3. Kickoff Return
Middle, Hands Team
4. Punt – Purple (Right, Left)
Fakes – Silver – Orange – White
5. Quick Kick
6. Punt Return (Wall Right & Left)
7. Punt Block
8. Punt Block Safe
9. Extra Point/Field Goal
Muddle / Kick
Fire / Fake
10. Extra Point / Field Goal
Block
The list goes down the line in or-
der. We start with kickoffs first.
We practice our kickoff returns. In
kickoff we go over everything. We
cover deep right, deep left and deep
middle. We go through our on-sides
kicks. We may have a special kick
set up. We go through all of those
plays. Then we work on our kickoff
returns.
Then we go against their on-side
kicks. When we are in the punt pe-
riod we get everybody off the field.
Then we yell “Punt, Punt,” They all
have to get on the field and line
up. We have our stop watch on the
snap and punt. They have to get the
punt off within 10 seconds. We
sprint down to the end zone and come
out of the end zone. We kick from
the hash marks right, and left. We
go through all of our fake kicks and
everything in the punting game. Then
we go to our punt return. The last
thing we do is work on the Field
Goal and Extra Point. We run through
our different fakes as well. We work
against the block team, and we run
against the fakes we may have in the
scouting report.
After that Coach Stoznick takes over
the offense. We are trying to simu-
late the game situation. We are
still running two groups. We go game
situation with all the stunts the
other team is going to throw at us.
I am over there running the scout
team and they give me the freedom to
throw everything we have at our of-
fense. That goes pretty quick as we
will run the plays two times.
Then we go to team defense. What we
started doing this year is something
we picked up on a trip last year.
Usually teams line up all the play-
ers behind the offense and then you
run the offensive plays. You have
the scout team on the other side.
When you are on the defensive team
you are looking at about 50 players
lined up back behind the formation.
It is hard to recognize the forma-
tion. What Coach Cap has done is
this. He has moved everybody off to
the side. Now all we have is the
scout team out there.
In the two-minute-offense we go over
the different situations. Practice
ends here around 5:30 PM to 6:00 PM.
After that we come in and we look at
any question that may have come up.
We must decide if there is something
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we need to change or if we need to
go over anything before the game.
This is the last time we have as a
staff together before the game.
Question: Are you in full gear or in
shells on Thursday?
If it is warm enough we go out in
the girdles that have the thigh pads
in them. Really they are dressed out
with everything on but their knee
pads. It is helmet, shoulder pads,
and shorts. But under their shorts
they have their girdle pads on. Dur-
ing the “All-Up” period on offense
our kids have the shields on. We
tell them to always stay up. When we
are on defense we hit and everybody
runs to the football. We have found
that this works best for us.
If it is colder it is the same thing
as shorts, except now we have sweat
pants on. We give the players the
sweats. It is really the same thing
as they were before with everything
on except their knee pads. We can
never emphasize special teams
enough. I am sure it is the same for
most of you.
On game day it is really a repeat of
what we did on Wednesday. The only
thing we do is this. We go out and
we have that same set routine for
the flex period. We do the same ex-
act routine. The kids all know what
to do. They have been doing it and
they have gone through it several
times. The only thing different we
do is to have what we call a special
teams check in the locker room. What
we do is this. We come off the field
after we run our offensive and de-
fensive plays in our pre-game. Then
we come into the dressing room. We
let the kids get a drink of water.
Then they all come in and they sit
down on the benches in the dressing
room and they are quiet. At that
time I come out and I go through all
of the special teams. We go through
each and every special team.
We start with kickoffs. We go with
our “hands team.” Then we go over
the kick return teams, kick returns,
on-sides kicks, punts, and punt re-
turns. If we have a special punt or
a fake punt that week we may have
different personnel on that team.
We have different personnel for
every team. We go through the spe-
cial teams until each and every
player knows what they are to do on
each team. We call out the teams and
the players on that team all raise
their hand. Then I go around and
make sure we have our 11 players. If
there is a mistake on any team we
have to start back at the beginning
and go through each team again.
The last things I want to go over
with you are some things with the
special teams. These are things
Coach Cap does different as opposed
to some other places that I have
been as a player or a coach. One is
the fact that special teams practice
is incorporated into the practice
every single day. This is true on
Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednes-
day, Thursday, and even right up to
just before game time. Special teams
are really emphasized.
If we are in the “All-Up” offense
and we run a play that is an incom-
plete pass we may change the pace of
practice. If Coach Cap sees that the
situation is just right and he
thinks the kids are starting to lose
focus he will just yell out “Punt -
Punt!” Those players on the Punt
Team have to line up for the punt.
We snap the ball and we are down to
cover the punt. We have another
coach who runs the JV’s on the Scout
Team Punt Team. He goes over what
they are to do when the “Punt –
Punt” call is made.
We have both teams set up for the
punt team and the scout punt return
team. They have to get on the field
and line up and get the punt off in
a set period of time. They do not
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get a second chance. After all in a
game, when you throw the incomplete
pass you have to go out on the field
and kick the football. If we do not
get it off in time we are taking a
penalty.
In the “All-Up” period when we get
down near the goal line we can call
out “Field Goal – Field Goal.” The
same thing happens with our kids. We
get them out there to kick the field
goal. The kids know we are going for
the kick. This is where Coach Cap is
very good. He gets the teams out on
the field and where they need to be
and ready to go.
I wanted to talk about one drill we
use on the kickoff. On Monday you
have the time to work on this drill.
We come back after a game when we
did not cover kickoffs very well. We
spend 15 to 20 minutes covering
kickoffs.
We have found this kickoff drill to
be really effective. What we do is
this. We run the drill across the
field so we have yard lines to check
our kids on the kickoff. We found
our kickoff coverage was not so much
what the other team did, but it was
more of a break down on our part.
Like our kickoff coverage teams, and
I am sure your teams are the same
way, we have a lot of our sophomores
and juniors on these teams. They are
first year kids who are out there
playing for you. They are not our
top notch kids. They might be lack-
ing the athletic ability, or they
have it, but just don’t have the
mental discipline. That may be the
reason why they are on this team. On
kickoff teams you need that crazy,
wild type player out there anyway.
So we run this kickoff coverage
drill. It is mainly used for mental
discipline.
We start the players off on a line
on the sideline. We put an X on the
line. About 15 yards up the field we
put a player facing the kickoff team
with a shield on. We are going to
teach them lane responsibility. I am
standing in the middle of the field.
I yell out “Right Side.” Everybody
has to get in their stance as if
they were on the kickoff team on the
right side.
Then I yell “Hit.” The players have
to take off as a right side player
on the kickoff. Their job is the
right force. They are going to avoid
the blocker to the outside. If I am
hitting with my inside forearm and I
am coming down on the right side, I
am going to avoid the outside. The
player is coming down as a right
side player. He is going to “Dip and
Rip” with the inside or left arm and
get around the blocker with the bag.
He has to get back on the line as
quick as possible because we want to
teach lane responsibility. We want
him to get back in that lane.
At about 20 yards deep we put a sec-
ond player with a shield. We want
the player to continue up the lane.
Once again he has to do the same
thing. He has to “Dip, Rip, Punch,
and Get Around” to the outside. Then
he has to keep in his lane.
On the opposite sideline we have a
back that is going to return the
kickoff. He must wait until this de-
fender gets about 10 yards away.
When the defender is about 10 yards
away the runner has the freedom to
go wherever he wants. The defender
then has to break down. He has to
get about 5 yards away and he has to
get into a good break down position
and make the tackle.
From there we blow the whistle. You
must keep the drill moving quickly
so we can get everyone through the
drill. The guy who just covered the
play gets the ball. The runner moves
up and we rotate the other players
up to the next position. It is an
excellent conditioning tool as well
as a good kickoff coverage drill. If
20
you want you can use this drill at
the end of practice where you can
get the conditioning and your kick-
off team practice.
Question: Do you have a ball carrier
in each line?
Yes! We have players 5 yards apart
on the return. We have several lines
and we can work several lines at a
time. You must spread the coaches
out to see all of the players. I
want to turn the lecture back to
Coach Cap.
Thanks Steve!
BY THE WAY “THAT’S A ONE!”
Question: How do you guys handle the
downtime with the players who aren’t
on the field during special teams?
Good question because when we run
the kids during practice and we do
special teams the other players are
on the sidelines. This gives them a
chance to get some water if they
want to, or to get attended to by
our trainer.
I allow them to sit down on the
benches during the special teams pe-
riod. We know we are not going to
control them all of the time. They
are going to screw around if you al-
low them to. But they are not on the
sideline very long. If we yell out
“Punt Team” or “Punt Team Return”,
they have to be ready. So they have
to be paying attention. If we call
out “Punt – Punt” and they are not
ready, they are going to do some-
thing extra after practice, or they
are not going to be part of the spe-
cial team. I tell them all the time,
there is a reason why we picked each
player for each special team. They
can lose their position just as fast
as they gained it.
I want to thank you for your atten-
tion. Hopefully this will help you
and your team. I hope everybody has
a great season next year.