Collegiate Coaching Strategy

            As a football coach, it is more important to help provide positive guidance and life lessons that are beneficial to my players in the long run. It’s always great to be successful athletically, but it also has to be done academically, characteristically, and behaviorally.

At the collegiate level in sports, not every athlete gets to play in every game. Some of the players just sit on the sidelines for a lot of the time. It is my job to identify which players to put on the game field, as well as having the other players, who don’t play as much, put in the same effort and team support. For many colleges, their sports teams will provide a junior varsity team and a varsity team. The Junior Varsity, or JV, is mainly for the incoming freshmen and 3^rd or 4^th string athletes. It is a way to let each athlete be able to compete and play more equally.

            In college, football is strictly a man’s sport. The ages of the athletes usually varies from ages 17-24. Thus, seeing the age of these competitors, it is the coach’s job to strategize accordingly; meaning that most of his athletes are still young adolescents and may need some reconstruction and guidance in other aspects of life. The players are mature enough to accept criticism, but young enough to help rebuild character if needed.

            Before each practice, in the mornings, the players are required to attend morning meetings. These meetings are established to promote each player to run on a schedule. It helps the athletes attend classes and not sleep in too long. There are set restrictions and requirements that the players are given in order to stay a part of the team. Some of which are for each athlete to maintain at least a 2.0 GPA, miss no more then 5 classes a semester, and to sit in the front of each class. These rules and regulations are put in place to help the athletes succeed academically and collegially.

Later in the day, after classes are over, the players will meet in the locker room and we will have team discussion. We will go over the daily and weekly practice outlines.  Here is a daily college football schedule.

Football Practice
Drill	Time	Comments
Morning meeting	6:00-7:00 am	Don’t be late
Chalkboard Talk	3:00-3:15 pm	Pre-practice info
Specialties	3:20-3:45 pm	Game assignments
Team Warm-Up	3:50-4:15 pm	Stretches
Defensive skill work	4:20-4:45 pm	Tackling drills
Individual specialties	4:50-5:10 pm	Speed drills
Team Offense	5:10-5:30 pm	Spread Offense
Team Defense	5:35-6:00 pm	4-4 Defense
Film & Discussion	6:00-6:30 pm	Opponent game film

The drills we do are to help improve our athletes’ performance. We do a variety of speed, strength, and mental toughness drills to improve the athletes’ wellbeing. The three-cone drill is one of our best drills to work on speed and agility. The cones are set up in the shape of an “L”, with cones at the corner and at each end, 5 yards apart (see diagram). The player starts by getting down in a three-point stance next to Cone 1. He runs to Cone 2, bends down and touches a line with his right hand. Then he turns and runs back to Cone 1, bends down and touches that line with his right hand. Then he runs back to Cone 2 and around the outside of it, weaves inside Cone 3, then around the outside of Cones 3 and 2 before finishing at Cone 1.The purpose of this is to test agility, speed, quickness, flexibility, change of direction, and body control.

            As coaches, we try hard to do a great job at helping our athletes succeed on and off of the field.  About 82% of student athletes in 2011, at the collegiate levels, graduated college. The way some coaches organize and structure their programs are very beneficial to the athletes and mostly the college it self. It gives the athletes some sense of freedom, unity, and discipline all formed together.