With new state laws enforcing restrictions on practice time and contact, coaches must work to be efficient as ever. In speaking with my peers, I have heard a range of answers, from: “How will they really be able to monitor this?” to “It doesn’t affect us. We never hit that much anyway.”

First, all coaches must accept that whether they like the restrictions or not, it is the law. If something happens as a result of not following the law, there will be consequences.

So just like on the sideline during game days, we must find ways to adapt and deal with this.

Practices must be planned and organized in detail with drills and technique work that will translate directly to success on the field. At all levels, work should progress from individual technique to application of technique in different scenarios in drills followed by timing everything up in group and team periods.

The challenge now is where to insert contact periods. Coach Lee Weber of Wamego High School provided a template for how he organizes a week for his team with guidelines outlined by USA Football’s Levels of Contact. His templates for each week are below.

CLICK HERE: To see Days 1 and 2 of Weber’s practice plan

CLICK HERE: To see Days 3 and 4 of Weber’s practice plan

CLICK HERE: To see a chart outlining USA Football’s Levels of Contact

In addition to organizing the team’s work, coaches must look for ways to improve performance and learn the intricacies of each play with the time available. Here are a few suggestions for improving coaching and efficiency.

• Utilize technology to free up time and devote energy to planning and organizing your practice. One necessity of every coordinator is to script practices so that all plays in the game plan get work. With less time available, this is critical. To aid coaches in this, I have developed the Game Planning System, which allows coaches to enter a game plan and remove the work necessary to script, type up call sheets and create wristbands. Those tools are auto generated once entering the plays. Furthermore, the GPS system forces coaches to stick with a set amount of plays, which streamlines what the team will work on during the week as well as ensuring that the team is prepared for all situations. The template is set up for high school varsity programs that use two way players and can be adapted to younger programs, up-tempo offenses and two-platoon options.
• Utilize apps such as Football Play Card. For coaches who draw up scout cards, the weekly process is reduced from hours to just minutes with the Football Play Card app. Again, this is time saved that can be devoted to preparing to coach players.
• Implement virtual reality training. A variety of virtual reality companies are doing an incredible job in creating applications that allow for safe and effective reps off the field. This is the future of training players in helping them understand concepts and make decisions without live contact. Utilized outside of practice, an entire script can be practiced in minutes. Players can hit the field having practiced their assignments in virtual reality. Stanford University utilized VR last season, and starting quarterback Kevin Hogan’s completion rate increased from 64 percent to 76 percent. He attributed much of that to the additional work that VR afforded him.

Good luck with the season. Plan ahead and provide your players with the tools they need to get the most out of practice time. 

Keith Grabowski has been a football coach for 26 years, currently serving as an offensive assistant and technology coordinator at Oberlin College in Ohio. He previously was a head coach at the high school level for eight years and the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Baldwin Wallace University. Grabowski serves as an advisor for several sports technology companies. He is a columnist for American Football Monthly and writes his own blog at thecoachesedge.com/blog. He's the author of "101+ Pro Style Pistol Offense Plays" and five other books available on thecoachedge.comand operates Coaches Edge Technologies. Follow him on Twitter @CoachKGrabowski.