Coach ,

For some, practice planning is a copy/paste function. Templates are set up and the practice plan varies little over the course of the season. However, crafting a practice that prepares a team to perform at an optimal level is both an art and a science. 

Dr. Erik Korem, Senior Associate Athletics Director for Student-Athlete High Performance shared the science portion of practice planning.

The point of any practice is to prepare players for game day. With potential limitations on the number of opportunities to prepare a team for its first contest because of COVID19, having a detailed plan on how to be ready both physically and mentally is critical. 

Korem pointed out that coaches should conduct more of their practices to truly replicate the time and intensity of game day atmospheres. This means setting those old templates and scripts aside and understanding the workload a player and team will face on game day. 

The First Game Conundrum

Korem emphasizes looking at having practices that prepare players for both the actual time of practice to replicate the actual time spent on game day. 

If players must exert over a 3 hour and 24 minute period (average time of an FBS contest) then there should be some days that replicate that (within NCAA parameters of course). High school games are between two and two and a half hours. 

His point is that most coaches do not plan practices to last as long as they used to, and if not prepared for leading up to game one, the team may very well look out of shape. Korem calls this the first game conundrum.  

He does not suggest having an uptempo practice for that long, but rather studying what actual game day looks like for a certain team, including half time, time outs, and even adjustments on the sideline, and replicating that workload in practice. Korem explains in this video:

https://coachtube.com/course_lesson/erik-korem-practice-scripting-to-optimize-performance/requirement-of-the-game/11802352

This becomes even more scientific in scripting reps across any segment of practice. Work and rest intervals should mimic the game. For example, in individual, a player on an uptempo team may have to work for 6-8 seconds of a play, and then have 22 seconds until he has to work again. Is the individual period set-up to replicate that? If not, it should be. Taking this format into group or team, what is the average drive for a particular team? If it’s seven plays, are the actually working those seven plays in a row with the 22-second “rest” in between before the ball is snapped again? Korem recommends setting up the script to match what a game actually looks like. It doesn’t have to be all seven play drives. It could be a variety of drives. 

Again, a coach could study a season and look at the various drives and get an average of the number of 3 and outs, 4, 5, 6 play drives and mix the script up to give players a feel of actually how long they will exert on the field. 

All of this starts with an understanding of what a particular player or team will face and creating those situations in practice. Korem recommends that coaches study their own team to better understand how to create the best practice plans and scripts to have their team ready for game day. 

To your success,

Coach Keith