ROCKINGHAM — Day 2 of football practices can make even the most passionate player slip into boredom or impatience.
Now in his third season as head coach of the Richmond Senior High team, coach Bryan Till feels fortunate to have athletes that treat the first weekend of August as if it were the last weekend in January.
“We’re blessed with great kids that have a good understanding of football and a community that loves football,” said Till.
“Kids here tend to come up with a little more appreciation for the game and understand we got to work on these things because they’re important to us being successful.”
According to Till, roughly 160 student-athletes have graced the Raiders’ practice fields in each of the first two days of tuneups that started on Thursday. That number is a slight uptick from those that joined the team for summer workouts and 7-on-7 competitions.
With the participation rates steadying at a suitable level, Till credits the players and coaches that have been with the program all three years with for how smoothly offseason workouts have been conducted.
“That continuity, and everybody knowing where everybody else is going to be…practice runs really efficient,” he said. “We just kind of know things without saying them now.”
The familiarity has created an atmosphere where passivity and indecisiveness is replaced with aggression and confidence. Till says the current unit is ahead of the curve as he’s already installing advanced situational drills much earlier than previous seasons.
“The toughest thing is…you almost have to pull them back a little bit,” he added about the eager bunch.
Because of state-mandated laws, high school football players have to practice at least six days during the first week of practices before they can suit up for full-contact activity.
Consequently, the last two days have consisted of positional drills, working on special teams, along with other conditioning workouts that don’t require contact.
More specifically, Till previewed what the schedule will look like ahead of next week’s full-pads contact session.
Offensively, he says the squad is scheduled to focus more on the run schemes that weren’t highlighted during the competitive 7-on-7 circuit last month. He stressed how important understanding those schemes is before having to go full speed.
On defensive, Till added that the summer sessions don’t allow for adjustments to motions that relate to stopping opposing rushing attacks.
“We’re working on the run game, our gap fits and tackling drills before that point so that our kids are prepared for that. We’re trying to build and lead up to that first day of contact,” he said.
The Raiders will continue with non-contact practices on Saturday then wrap up with sessions on Monday and Tuesday before Wednesday’s full-contact sessions.
