Coastal Carolina In-Season Offensive Practice Outline

by: Gary Smallen
Co-offensive Coordinator, Coastal Carolina University
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One of the more crucial aspects of in-season offensive practice planning is making sure that everything we plan to have in our arsenal on Saturday has been installed and practiced at some time during the week.

Although that may sound simple, the limited practice time constraints we have make it imperative that we have a sound structure to our weekly practice plan so that no part of our game plan is left on the cutting room floor.

The following schedule outlines how we break up our weekly in-season practice plans.

Monday:
A. Groupwork
1. Walk-throughs vs our opponent’s fronts and coverages B. Teamwork 1. 45 play script a. 15 plays in the field red zone ( +30 to the +10) b. 30 plays are from our base offense mixing up the down and distance.

We signal in plays on Monday so that the tempo is somewhat slower.

Tuesday:
A. Tempo Drill
Immediately after stretching, etc. we hit 3 or 4 plays with the 1’s followed by 3 or 4 plays with the 2’s. We are trying to accomplish a couple of things in this drill: Set a good mental and physical tempo for practice as well as hitting specific segments of our no-huddle offense.

This is a great drill and only takes a few minutes at the outset of practice.

B. Groupwork
1. Ball-Handling drill with the QB’s and RB’s.
2. Quick Game drill with the QB’s and Rec’s
3. 1 on 1 drills vs the secondary
4. Inside run drill during Punt/Punt Return periods
5. 7 on 7 Skelly

C. Teamwork
1. 45 play script
a.15 plays are goal line (+10 to the endzone) b. 30 plays mixing up the down and distance.

We radio down and signal scripted plays on Tuesdays in order to practice our coaching communication.

Wednesday:
A. Tempo Drill

B. Groupwork
1. Ball Handling
2. Concept Route Drill
a. All skill players
b. Kevin Brown, our passing game coordinator, does a great job here. Our concept pass patterns are worked with the different formations, motions, etc. we plan to use that week. These patterns were the plays we hung our hat on last year.
3. Red zone 1 on 1 drills vs the secondary 4. 11 on 11 Passing game drill a. We work the concept routes here vs our defense with the thud tempo.

C. Teamwork
1. 45 play script
a. 15 plays in the red zone
b. 30 plays: heavy on 2nd and 3rd and long plays.

On Wednesdays we simply yell out the plays so that the tempo becomes very high-rep.

Thursday:
A. 2 minute drill

B. Clock offense

C. 15 pass plays on air

D. 2 x 2 point plays

E. 4 x “coming out” plays

F. Scripted drives
1. 10 plays-1’s
2. 8 plays- 2’s
3. 7 plays- 1’s
G. 2 x “Hail Mary” plays

H. 2 x “Score” plays

Player rotation for scripted drills is 5 reps for the 1’s, 3 reps for the 2’s and 2 reps for the 3’s. Midway through the season we change the rotation to 6-3-1 so that our starters are getting more work.

A chain crew works all skelly and scripted drills: the head coach keeps a close eye on our success rate in all down and distance drills.

Jamie Snider , our co-coordinator/ run game coordinator / OL coach, makes sure that we hit all the fronts and coverages we expect to see. He does a great job insuring there is no lack of effort or execution during any practice.

We chart all reps the 1’s rep during the week and make certain they hit everything on the board for Saturday. Our QB’s work with the OL during some of our specialty periods to get extra cadence, timing and long snap work.

This is basically how we implemented our offense each week and it worked well for us. We hope there is a little something that may help you out.

Coastal is a special place…call and come visit. Good luck this year.

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