NFL Tackle Football

By: John Austinson

                Getting ready for a football season, if you ask most coaches, is a year-long process that starts the day after your last season ended.  (The usual: exit interviews, ordering equipment, meeting with college recruits, going to clinics, opening the weight room, summer camps, etc…)    When the season actually rolls around, and the excitement for football is in the air, I’ll tell you how we prepare for the season and how it is a little different in a Northern climate state. 

                 In Minnesota, our High School League Rules allow us to work with our athletes in the summer from May 31 through July 31, and we are allowed one team meeting prior.  This is to avoid a coaches’ undue influence during their off-season and encourages students to be multi-sport athletes and avoid specialization.  We are not allowed to work with our athletes during other sport seasons or the first two weeks of August.  Next summer there is potential the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) will implement a family week, around the week of July 4^th, where no activities can be done with athletes so they may spend time with family.  In Byron, Minnesota where I coach, in early June, we test our players in several different categories. (40 time, agility, lifting, etc…) Later in June, we attend a 7 on 7 passing league.  Towards the end of July, we hold a full-padded week long team camp, and then go to a local college for their full-pad multiple team overnight camp. 

                Our Fall Athletic season begins the third Monday in August.  During the first two weeks of August, we have, what is traditionally called ‘Captain’s Practice’.  The practice time is usually a few hours long, unpadded, where they work mainly on conditioning and play perfection and is run solely by players.  Those are not mandatory and coaches cannot have involvement in them.   

                Come that third Monday, our season starts and this time is known as two-a-days. The first three days we are unpadded, helmets and shorts, to help athletes acclimate to conditioning.  That gives us a chance to retest our athletes and see how much progress they made over the summer.  The next two days are full-pads, but limited hitting, to acclimate the players to the heat and added weight that come with wearing pads.  The following week we are allowed to go all out.  We practice from 8am-1pm to avoid later in the day potential heat and transportation issues that comes from our younger players.  Our first practice is from 8am to 10am, working on offense and special teams; and the second goes from 11am to 1pm where we work on defense and get into the weight room.  We give them an hour break in-between to eat something light, ‘chalk-talk’ to cover schemes, and give them extra rest.    We feel that gives our players the proper time off before the next day’s practice and doesn’t consume their day if they want to maintain employment somewhere or spend time with others.      

                Recently, there has been a lot of coverage in the news about how to run the first two weeks of a football season regarding heat and player safety.  The National High School Coaches Association (NHSCA) has been doing a lot of investigating and looking at some ideas.  One is to follow the acclimatization recommendation by the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA), another is what the NCAA has done by having five days of single-session workouts before having multiple-session daily workouts.  In Minnesota, coaches use a temperature/humidity index guideline, given by the MSHSL, for when we should have full-padded practice to no practice.  Living in a Northern climate, we do not have to deal with heat issues nearly as much as other states do but we do take heat issues seriously. 

                Lastly, we hope, like all coaches do, all our efforts, along with our in-season team building cook-outs, dinners and film sessions help us have another successful football season.

• GREEN LINE: Regular practices with full practice gear can be conducted for conditions that plot to the left of the green line.
• RED LINE: Cancel all practices when the temperature and relative humidity plot to the right of the red line, practices may be moved into air-conditioned spaces.
• BETWEEN RED AND YELLOW LINES: Increase rest to work ratio with breaks of 20 minutes and all protective equipment should be removed, to practive shorts only when the temperature and relative humidity plot between the red and yellow lines.
• BETWEEN YELLOW AND GREEN LINES: Increase rest to work ratio with breaks every30 minutes and wear shorts with helmets and shoulder pads only when the temperature and relative humidity plot between the yellow and green lines.
• Heat risk rises with increasing heat and relative humity.  Fluid breaks should be scheduled for all practices and increased as the heat sress rises.
• Add 5 degrees to temperature between 10 AM & 4 PM from mid May to mid September on bright, sunny days.
• Practices should be modified to reflect the conditions for the safety of the athletes.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily represent the opinion of the NFL.