Practice Organization
the Miami Trace Way
By:
Matt Bartley
Former Offensive
Coordinator/Running Backs Coach
Miami
Trace High School
At Miami Trace, we feel we have what might be one of the most effective forms of practice planning. In today’s era of two-platooning, we have our own wrinkle to that format.
By no means is this anything I am responsible for, it was in place when I arrived at Miami Trace in 1999. And it has been there for as long as any of the coaches on staff have been there. I have found it to be the most effective practice organization I have ever been apart of in my ten years as an assistant coach at varying levels of competition.
As coaches we only coach one side of the ball. In a sense we are two-platoon. I only coach running backs, and I have no defensive responsibilities. At other schools I have been at either I coached both sides of the ball or I had a primary responsibility and then a secondary responsibility.
Our players learn at least two positions, one offensive and one defensive. This is very similar to what I have done during most of my coaching career. It is very different from two-platoon formats where athletes only need to learn one position.
The minimum number you need to two-platoon is 22. The same is true for our system. If you have less than that you really can’t do either system. With 22 as a starting number in the two platoon system you are only one deep at any position. In our system you are 2 deep. Now if you only have 22, two-platoon is probably not going to fit you well. So lets say that you have 44, now you are coaching kids two deep at each position. How ever your second best defensive tackle may only be your 4th best player who could play that position. In our system we would coach 4 deep at each position, by allowing athletes to play both offense and defense. This also allows us to rotate freely during the game.
We call this A/B grouping. During camp we start to formulate who is going to be in what groups as we see who will be fitting into certain positions. A couple of things that we take into consideration, we want our #1 Quarterback and #1 Center are together. After that we want to split up #1’s at each position. We may try to keep our sides of the Offensive Line together. We will try to keep the left side in one group and the right in another.
Below are examples of a two-a-day practice schedule and regular season practice schedule.
If you have any questions or would like to talk about our practice organization, please feel free to contact me at school at 740.335.5891 or email me at dfenserulz@sbcglobal.net
2-A-Day
9:00 – 9:10 – Meetings
9:10 – 9:25 – Warm – Up
9:25 – 10:15 – Group – A
– Offense – B – Defense
(During this time we schedule Individual, Group, and Unit time)
10:15 – 10:20 – Water Break
10:20 – 11:10 – Group – A
– Defense – B – Defense
11:10 – 11:15 – Water Break
11:15 – 11:45 – A Team O –
B Team D
11:45 – 12:30 – Break
12:30 – 1:00 – Specialties
1:00 – 1:30 – Break
1:30 – 1:40 – Warm – Up
1:40 – 2:20 – Group – B
– Offense – A – Defense
2:20 – 2:25 – Water Break
2:25 – 2:55 – Group – A
– Offense – B – Defense
2:55 – 3:00 – Water Break
3:00 – 3:30 – B Team O – A Team D
As we get closer to the end of 2-a-Days we will make one team period Offense with all of the #1 and the other one Defense for all of their ones. We will also alternate when they practice, so defense will get morning on day and then afternoon the next.
Season Practice
3:15 – 3:30 – Warm – Up
3:30 – 3:45 – Specialties
3:45 – 4:15 – Group
4:15 – 4:20 – Water Break
4:20 – 4:50 – Group
4:50 – 4:55 – Water Break
4:55 – 5:15 – Team D
5:15 – 5:45 – Team O
Now we will switch the amount of time we spend in group as we go along in the week. We will also make sure both the offense and defensive staffs get equal amount of team time.
Once again if you would like to discuss how we ran our practices at Miami Trace please feel free to email me.