How to Run a Football Practice

Practice is crucial to building a successful football team. As coach, it is up to you to develop an efficient practice. Here are some basic tips on what a normal practice consists of.

Instructions

    • 1

      Start practice with a short lap of about 50 yards. Then line up your team and do a variety of stretches. Stretch different muscles for about 20 minutes. Then have your team run another lap.

    • 2

      Make your team learn discipline when someone on the team makes a mistake or doesn’t listen. Don’t make just that one kid run a lap, but make the whole team run a lap. It is a team sport, not an individual sport, so make the whole team pay for one player’s mistake. Eventually, you will have your players taking not just personal responsibility, but also mutual responsibility. If they have a great practice and do everything right as a team, consider letting them skip the wind sprints at the end of practice as a reward.

    • 3

      Implement plays for your offense, defense and special teams. Never stop the conditioning of your team, but it should now take a backseat to the learning actual plays and teaching the basics of the game.

    • 4

      Decide who wants to play offense and who wants to play defense. Remember, you can always change players around to the position you want them to play after you see what they can do. Until then, let them choose what they think they want to play so that they are involved and feel that their opinion matters. Once you have a team of players for both offense and defense, teach your offensive and defensive game plans to your players. You will learn quickly what your players can and can't do. Move your players around to the positions you think they will excel at. Always explain to them why you want them in the new position, and motivate them to be the best no matter where they play on the team.

    • 5

      Spend about 45 minutes teaching offensive plays. Then it's time for defense. Spend about 45 minutes teaching defensive plays. Take a water break, and then teach special teams for about 20 minutes. Do wind sprints for about 15 minutes.

    • 6

      Use some of that time running additional laps due to the inevitable mistakes made by some players, so you may actually only end up with about ten minutes or so left. Take those last few minutes for a cool down, get some water, have the team “take a knee” and give them a speech to keep them motivated and to inform them of what direction the team is going in. That is how you run a complete football practice and program.