FOOT

Two-Platoon Football in High School

A Different Approach to Practice

By Bruce Lane, Athletic Director, Head Football Coach, Augusta (GA) Christian School

f you had told me 10 years ago that our high school football team would be two-platooning, I would have laughed at you. My response would have been "We don't have enough players to do that" or "Our best players need to play as much as possible." But for the past three years, our team of 50-60 players has been using a platoon system with excellent results (6-5,12-1, State Champions, 10-3 State Runner-ups). The idea for this began three years ago when we graduated 18 seniors, most of whom had started since their

sophomore year. We were faced with many holes to fill and we were coming off two very successful years our first two back-to-back winning seasons in school history) 9-3 and 8-3. We were transitioning into a new association and our opening game opponent was playing about 19 different players. In the pre-season we encountered some injuries and sickness that caused us to consider playing some guys that we might have otherwise overlooked. By the time the starters returned, those younger guys had made an impression and had earned

the right to play. The reason we were able to post a 6-5 record that year is because we played a lot of players and our opponents played a lot of guys both ways. Well, once you commit to platoon football, it changes the way you look at your team and your coaches. A typical pre-platoon football practice lasted approximately two hours in length, split evenly with all the players leaming an offensive and defensive position and only the starters and the main subs really getting involved in practice. In reality, the starters were getting

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COACH AND ATHLETIC DIRECTOR

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luf the reps and the #2's getting the others. The others (3's and 4's) got very few if any reps and over 50% of the team not being engaged in practice after fundamentals. This can lead to very low morale and a sen.se of not contributing to the team's success. Two-platoon football is hardly a new concept; but how do you do it in a small school setting? Most every team is capable of starting 22 different people, but the real challenge is how do you get quality back-ups ready. Here is how we did it last year and it was the most enjoyable year we have had coaching as a staff: First you need six coaches to make it work. We assign three coaches to each side of the ball. The defensive coordinator (coaches LB/DE), an assistant for the defensive line, and an assistant for the defensive backs. The offensive coordinator (which is me) coaches the QB's and nmrung backs, an offensive line coach, and a receivers coach make up the other side. Both the offense and the defense follow much the same practice schedule on opposite ends of the field. Practice is divided into 3 main parts: Fundamentals, Perimeter: (7 on 7), and Schemes (OL) and Pass Rush (DL), and Team Period. One of the assistants assumes the duty of running the scout team on each end of the field. We have been able to expand our fundamental teaching time as well as include more sophisticated game plans on both sides of the ball. It also engages all our players during practice by having them fill the positions on the scout teams. These phases of practice take about 1:30 minutes of the practice schedule. We then send all the offensive players to the defensive coaches to learn a second position and all the defensive players to the offensive players to learn their second position. This is an abbreviated period or 30-45 minutes. We follow this practice schedule on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday we go back a more standard Practice of every player going to the Defensive position first and then every player going to their offensive position. This allows us to work in our game night rotation with our subs. We were taking a gamble when we went to this type of practice schedule. We got better each week and some of our non-starters got more reps and when injuries occurred they were ready to step in and help us win. We originally thought we could never two-platoon, but we now believe we will never not play twoplatoon football!

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