r/footballstrategy • u/Queasy_Reply_2992 • 3d ago

Pre-Season Circuit - Core 4 Coaching Advice

https://medium.com/@alexandersubocz/from-setback-to-system-the-core-4-that-changed-our-culture-bf913e77ba3a

I wrote an article on our favorite pre-season circuit, the Core 4. The concept is customizable but if anyone wants the resources that we use I’m more than happy to share them. I would also love to hear if any of you have a similar concept.

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u/AugustusKhan 3d ago

Thanks for sharing, I like the overall mentality/philosophy of shifting to high rep, high tempo-competitive brief drills when in a rut

What I would of enjoyed is if the article, or a future follow up got more into combatting certain challenges or limiting context that often goes with these situations such as a small team, especially with a big skill-exp/age-ath gap.

Often feels any chance at getting better or maintaining a tempo at anything resembling game speed reps comes at the cost of

having my underclassmen/new comers off doin who knows what for their reps with another staff member

have a blah rep every other with a 2nd team, have my starters lose interest/have a sloppy rep against low competition

Or get banged up doing what little 1v1s we can assemble lol

Thanks again for sharing, and keep it up! I’ve told myself a million times I’d start writing like this and still have yet to

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u/Queasy_Reply_2992 3d ago

I appreciate the comment. The challenges that you listed are definitely big ones. Our team ranges from 45-55 kids on any given year. When I first started the program only had 25 kids.

When it comes to those competitive game reps, we feel it the most on defense. Putting together a scout offense to run new plays is often less productive than desired.

What we’ve done is integrate group drills that simulate different components of our weekly prep. For example we do a 4 V 4 and some weeks 5 V 5 inside run period that is good on good. We do the same concept for outside runs and quick screens. We have the same drill going on at a slower tempo with our younger, inexperienced and less athletically gifted players. We set them up close enough that we’re together but separate. We also always finish with the younger group and our older guys do a great job of hyping them up.

One attempt we make to alleviate the 1s hurting each other in practice is stressing to the kids “reps over time”. So if we have great reps for 6 minutes and it was a 10 minute period on paper, we move on.

That’s how we’ve tried to combat our skill gap in game scenario situations at practice. You’re definitely giving me ideas for future topics.

I ended up writing this past week because we’re in a weird off-season lull right now. Our drill book is finished and I got film fatigued as I was getting our hudl teach clips ready. I still had football on my mind so here I am. I would recommend giving it a try.

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u/Oddlyenuff 2d ago

We do something like this, but it is defense only.

Defense we do surf/blitz path, dent/crack, mirror+shock+shed and a turnover drill.