A question about football drills from a young coach got me thinking about practice scheduling, drills, fundamentals, and ultimately a concept and term that I learned from a colleague while at the University of Central Missouri, Corey Batoon.  Coach Batoon in now at Florida Atlantic University as Defensive Back Coach and Co-Defensive Coordinator

The concept and term that Coach Batoon brought to our staff was EDD’s – Every Day Drills.

For every position group there are a set of basic fundamentals that they need to master in order to be successful on the playing field.  For DB’s it might be the shuffle, back peddle, crossover and run.  For the LB’s that I coached it was stance, read step (start) and shuffle.  The point is, every position group on the field has this set of fundamentals that are important enough to do EVERY day – hence the name EDD’s.

All the coaches on my defensive staff were teaching these drills, but we were all going through the process of writing down each drill, every day, on the practice schedule.  Coach Batoon helped us streamline the process of setting our practice schedule, and also helped us imprint the idea on our players that these drills were important; they were important enough to do every day; they were our position group’s EDD’s

I cannot tell you what the EDD’s for your position group should be…  that depends on your (and your coordinator and head coach’s) philosophy.  What I can tell you is that from my experience, many coaches, especially the first few days of spring or fall practice, tend to hurry through these basic fundamentals in order to get on to the process of installation.  Often they assume, especially if they have veteran, experienced players, that they already know this “basic” stuff.  I think this is a mistake.  I have observed many successful coaches, in many successful programs at all levels – high school, college, pro – and one thing they all have in common – they all spend time teaching their athletes fundamentals; they spend time coaching their position group’s EDD’s.

Below is a picture of a defensive practice schedule from a couple of years ago.  You can see how we began teaching the concept of EDD’s with each position group.  You can download the Excel practice schedule template by clicking on the picture – or clicking the link – practice schedule template.

Next week – more about scheduling practices

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

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