From a logical point of view, the key to developing a tough team would be to set a system in place where the athlete is trained to a standard that matches how they will compete. This raises some questions: if we are not going to compete against another program in mat drills on Saturdays, why do they need to be so tough? And why should we even waste a month or more of valuable time executing them? The discipline of rising to the standard over and over in each drill is an expression of mental toughness. Everything that is graded can be taught to and accomplished by each athlete, if communicated in the right manner. Each athlete will have an opportunity to make the choice to compete—especially if they understand that competing at the highest level will directly benefit them. The Purpose is the Bond There are many ways to skin the mat drill exercise. The more position-specific, the better the drill. I suggest working with each position coach on selecting drills that they would program into a practice schedule, and then writing a standard for each drill. Again, the standard at which the drill is performed is an aspect of mental toughness. To satisfy football coaches that want high intensity, effort, and strain, program change of direction drills or agility drills halfway through the workout and ramp up the intensity. There are several ways to format the training session, and the length of the session could be between 60-75 minutes to satisfy all parties. Concurrent to his tenure at D1 Sports Training, Hester also worked as the Director of Training at the Manning Passing Academy, where he designed a training program for over 1,300 high school athletes and delivered a specific training seminar for high school and college coaches. Whether the moniker is mat drill, winter workouts, or coach’s circuits, they’re essentially the same, just a horse of a slightly different color. Mat drills have been a spring football right of passage in a high percentage of college programs since the mid-eighties and the validity and subsequent use of mat drills will be a debate till the end of time. Whether you are an opponent or proponent of mat drills, there is one thing that I am confident in: they are not going away!

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College football coaches will argue with their performance staffs on how vital the drills are to building a program. College strength coaches will argue with each other on the validity and ramifications of mat drills with respect to the development of their athletes. Proponents of mat drills will steadfastly dig their heels into the ground on the basis that these drills are necessary to develop mental toughness, even though there is no quantitative proof of this—any statement otherwise is purely anecdotal.We only have 15 spring practice days a year and we only have 25 fall camp practices. The NCAA is currently talking about dropping it to 20 fall camp days. Out of 365 days, we have only 40 days to hone the football skills of our athletes as a full staff. Now here is where I am going to lose my newfound fans that are opponents of mat drills: all teams, young and old, will not achieve a championship season if they are not held to the highest of standards in training, practice, academics, and social life. Mat drills are a modality that facilitates a high standard of training in a team setting with the entire football staff. Alone, the entirety of this setting cannot be replicated by the performance staff. Standards are set and upheld in every facet of the workout, and key factors are graded. Such factors include: Every drill should be filmed and graded during each workout. Athletes could be put into different colored jerseys depending on how well they performed in that particular workout. Here is where most performance professionals will disagree with their football coach brethren: these drills in no way enhance the physical capabilities of the football athlete. Most drills selected are basic, poorly performed change of direction drills that in no way develop the athlete at their respective position. There is zero technical information that is given to the athlete or processed by the athlete, just a lot of yelling to move faster.

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Table 1 & 2. Mat drills will be more successful and more helpful to the coaches if they are programmed symmetrically with another training cycle. Hester was an assistant strength coach at LSU from 1995–98, working with the speed development program for then-football coach Gerry DiNardo. He worked primarily with the LSU baseball team as it won two national championships under legendary coach Skip Bertman. Hester also worked with the men’s basketball, women’s soccer, and women’s golf programs, as well as the varsity cheerleaders.

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That’s why you need specialist football insurance to protect yourself, your players, and your equipment from potential incidents both on and off the pitch. I believe mat drills have a place in college football because they help build a tribe and cement standards. However, the drills do not do the work. Most football coaches believe that the culture of the team is set during mat drills and carries over through the fall season, but this is not the case. Coaches will say things like “We won X amount of games because of mat drills” or “We won conference because of mat drills.” Unless these coaches have exceptional athletes, they are probably going to be looking for jobs in January because mat drills don’t win football games, athletes do. As a field we can always do better. Deconstructing and reconstructing mat drills is just one instance, though it is one that would loom large for a program. The key is to educate the football staff, and if they refuse to listen, do everything in your power to mitigate the adverse physical effects of mat drill sessions. As coaches, we owe it to our athletes and to the field to be better, do better, and progress from what has always been done. I feel that mat drills serve an important purpose in building team culture. Studies have shown that males will bond to a higher degree when they go through a mentally and physically taxing situation. The more stress they endure together, the tighter their bond. This is why I lean towards being a proponent of mat drills. Why do so many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to send their employees to ropes courses?

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The standard starts with how they enter the field, with strong body language and positive verbiage. If a player walks onto the field or doesn’t have a smile on their face, they are sent off to return appropriately. This progresses to the focus and attention to detail in the warmup. If one athlete is not focused, then the warmup starts over. Things fall apart when a coach gets lazy in paying attention to the details and the standard. The standard is the standard! If a coach expects an athlete to be mentally tough, then the coach should be mentally tough in upholding those standards. Every drill should have a communicated standard and it should be upheld. For example, the following is a list of things a coach should look for during a drill: Performing eight to twelve days of individual drills before spring ball begins will enable the football staff to decrease the amount of individual drill time and expand more team drills. It will also cut down on long practices—thus keeping the players fresh—and it will decrease the chances of injury because the athlete would not be in a continual state of fatigue. The previous statement will not make football coaches happy because if you have 120 minutes to practice then we better damn well use all of them. Out of the 120 minutes of practice, you could at least alleviate 20-30 minutes of useless filler drills that only fatigue the athlete and increase their load. If you make practices faster and sharper with fewer mistakes and your athletes come out of it healthier…I think you won the day! By programming drills that directly affect the abilities of athletes in their respective positions, there is far greater buy-in from the athlete. With this increase in motivation, I have seen greater effort from the athletes, as they feel their intensity and focus is being rewarded. Usually between 1.5-1.8m in height, shalom poles are fitted with steel spikes at the base so they can be planted upright into the training pitch and used for various drills. If you train indoors, weighted pole bases are available to avoid damaging artificial pitches.Table 3 & 4. There are many ways to format a mat drill session. Use these as an example and adapt from there.