No aspect of the coaching structure has a bigger or more lasting effect on the players and their performance than the methodology used in installing and practicing your system. When I think of  Bill Walsh and the success of the "West Coast Offense," I think less of the actual X's and O's than I do of the comprehensive approach Coach Walsh took to creating a structure.

That structure was based on specific teaching methods that carried a team systematically from installation in training camp, to weekly installation of the game plans and practices, to the actual implementation on game day. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese Warrior and philosopher, summed it up best more than two thousand years ago: "Win the war, then fight the war."

It is this systematic approach that I learned from people like Bill Walsh and Dennis Green that I am attempting to convey in this material. Regardless of the style of play you advocate, the overall structure of preparing your team through the practice structure and game plan remains the same.

To begin you must look at what you can realistically expect to practice in each situation and how best to proportion each period. To do this you must first understand that there are very specific limits to the number of plays you can expect to efficiently practice in a given week.

The best way to examine this is to evaluate three key factors:

• Length of your practice
• How are practices divided between periods (individual, group, skell and team)
• What aspect of the offense is practiced in each period

Whatever your particular practice structure consists of, it should be easy for you to look at that structure and determine how much time is being spent in group or team situations and how they have been broken down situationally.

I am not advocating that there is only one way to set up a practice structure or that it should have a specific ratio. It is your job as a coach to determine what best suites your needs and how much attention any offensive situational segment should get. What I am advocating is that you give substantial thought to what that ratio specifically is and how are you going to utilize each minute.

Our practice week breaks down situationally as follows:

Regular Weekly Schedule

DAY	PERIOD	BASE	3rd & LONG	3rd & MED	SY	BU	RED ZONE	GOAL LINE	2-PT.	TOTAL
WED.	W.T. INSIDE TEAM SKELL TEAM	10 6 8 6 6	3 4	3 4						16 6 8 10 10
THU.	W.T. TEAM SKELL TEAM	4 4 4	4	4	3 2	3	4 6 4 4	4 3	2 2	20 13 12 12
FRI.	TEAM SKELL	3		4	2		5 4	2	2	11 11
TOTALS %		51 40%	11 9%	15 12%	7 5%	3 2%	27 21%	9 7%	6 5%	129

These numbers represent any scripted period against a live defense. What is not shown here are individual and group periods where we will service ourselves. W.T. is a walk thru period we do in shorts. The small number of snaps on Friday is due to the fact that we will use a team period to run a live two-minute drill and a separate team period to run a semi-live "Move the Ball" where the head coach will start us on the 30 yard line and give us 8-10 situations we must react to.

I want to emphasize again that these ratios and formats are examples of the way we have laid out our work week. Your priorities, time line and emphasis may be entirely different. The important point I hope to make is the interactive way the total offensive package is proportioned from game plan to practice structure to actual game calls.

Initially, these numbers may seem substantially low to you. Keep in mind that we have only 53 players with which to work each week and do not have the numbers that some college and high schools programs may have to provide entire scout teams to be sent off with their respective counterparts to practice for two full hours.

When I was growing up, the mentality and numbers allowed coaches to take large blocks of time and separated the team into complete offensive and defensive practices, accompanied by complete scout teams. There is a certain comfort zone that all coaches can easily fall into in preparing their team. By simply loading up the game plan with a superfluous number of plays or by practicing in a manner where they simply run through a number of plays, a coach can fool himself into thinking he has covered everything he can and it is now up to the players.

With the reduced scholarships, and time limitation in college today, the numbers available to you have considerably diminished. More and more college teams are adapting their formats to those similar to the professional plans.

We will use this same method of practice ratios in our training camp preparation. Our camp is basically broken into a week of preparation culminating in a scrimmage and mock game. The next week will usually involve a scrimmage with another team ending the week with our first preseason game.

Most college and high school teams will have a two-week training camp period and those numbers could easily be adjusted to reflect the totals you want to accomplish. You might note the total number of plays you are able to focus on in this format. In the Regular Weekly Schedule we are able to run about 130 plays, or roughly twice the NFL average of 62 plays per game. The Train Camp Practice Allotment shows that we will get about 500 snaps in our first 20 practices (not counting live scrimmage work). This represents about half a season worth of preparation based on the NFL average of 1000 plays per year.
 

TRAINING CAMP PRACTICE ALLOTMENT
1997
DAY	#	TYPE	BASE			2ND LONG			3RD LONG			3RD MED			SHORT YARDAGE			GOAL LINE			RED ZONE			2 PT	BU	LIVE
			TEAM		SKEL	TEAM		SKEL	TEAM		SKEL	TEAM		SKEL	TEAM		SKEL	TEAM		SKEL	TEAM		SKEL
MON	1	SHELL	15		14	11		6				5
MON	2	SHELL			6	5			10		5	4		4
TUES	3	PADS	9		10	5		4	5					6												BLITZ/2 PLAY
TUES	4	SHORTS: SPECIAL TEAMS PRACTICE
WED	5	PADS			10			4			4			2												2 MIN/MB
WED	6	SHORTS	4		4							6		4							10		8			BLITZ
THUR	7	PADS													4			5					12	2	5	MB RZ
THUR	8	SHORTS: SPECIAL TEAMS PRACTICE
FRI	9	SHORTS			10			4			4			2	4			6			4			2		2 MIN/MB RZ
FRI	10	PADS: SCRIMMAGE
SAT	11	SHORTS: MOCK GAME
MON	12	SHORTS	4		10	4						4		5												2 PLAY/NO HUD
MON	13	PADS	9		8	5			4			4		8
TUES	14	SHELL	6		10			4				5									10		10			SAINTS
TUES	15	PADS			10									5							15					SAINTS
WED	16	PADS	6		8			4			4	4			4			5			6					4 MIN (MB)
WED	17	SHELLS: SPECIAL TEAMS PRACTICE
THUR	18	PADS			5	4			4			4		5												2 MIN
THUR	19	SHORTS	15		6							4
FRI	20	PADS	6		5							4		4	3			4			4		3	2		2 MIN
			74		116	34		26	23		17	44		45	15		0	20		0	49		33	6	5
TOTALS	507		190			60			40			89			15			20			82

Game Plan Board

Establishing a specific process of laying out your game plan and practice preparation is the next logical step in the installation progression. We use a Game Plan Board as we progress through our situational discussions. This makes it very easy to make changes, compare plays and formations and, in general, gives everyone a reference point with which to check the game plan at any given time.

As we pointed out earlier, whatever the parameters you set, it is important to recognize that there is a finite limit to the amount of time you can effectively practice.

We also layout all our scripting on a board that reflects the total scripted snaps by each situation. By laying out the scripts on this board we can, at a glance, check the total number of times we are running a given play, from what formations and against what defenses. This, like the Game Plan Board, also gives each coach a reference point during the week as to what is being scripted, and when. This way coaches can look at the entire week in one glance and use it for drawing their cards, or preparing their meetings based on what and where the different parts of the offense are being installed.

Because of the limitations of the number of live snaps that can actually get done during the course of a week, we will often prioritize what we think needs to be done versus a live defense and what can be run in a group or individual period. As an example, if there is a route progression that we have run a great deal and the players are fairly proficient at, I may not script that route in one of our live periods, figuring we are familiar enough with it that I can brush it up in an individual or group period. This would save the live snaps for something new or something that may need the extra work.

Coaching Assignments

How you utilize your staff during your preparation and installation of your game plan can be a major asset. It has been well documented that small interactive groups are a much better way to communicate and teach. The time and scope involved with establishing and implementing a game plan makes it very difficult for one individual to effectively do everything. We have an excellent group of coaches with the Ravens, each with a wide variety of experiences and capabilities. It would be foolish to not utilize those capabilities by excluding them from the creation and implementation of our game plans.

I recognize that you will probably not have as many coaches to work with as we have in the NFL, but delegating responsibilities can be a very effective way of analyzing and formulating the best possible game plan. Many tasks are divided among two people, so that if your numbers dictate, you could consolidate a number of these functions.

OFFENSIVE COACHES ASSIGNMENT CHART (1997)
POSITION	OFF. COORDINATOR	QUARTERBACKS	WIDE RECEIVERS	RUNNING BACKS	TIGHT ENDS	OFF. LINE
GAME ANALYSIS	ALL SITUATIONS	NICKLE PASS BLITZ	RED ZONE PASS	GEN. RUN SY-GL RED ZONE RUN 4 MINUTE	COMPUTER REPORTS: SELF SCOUT OPP.ANALYSIS	GEN. RUN SY-GL RED ZONE RUN 4 MINUTE
SCOUT REPORT	GAME PLAN OUTLINE ROUTE SHEETS	COVERAGES	PERSONNEL COVER SHEET	FRONTS RUN SHEETS PRO. SHEETS	TENDENCIES	STUNTS BLITZ
WEEK	SCRIPTS	TEAM CARDS BLITZ PERIOD BLITZ TAPE	COVERAGES SCOUT TEAM COV. 7 ON 7 CARDS	COMPILE CARDS GROUP RUN CARDS 9-7 CARDS	WALK THRU CARDS SPEC. CAT CARDS SCOUT FRONTS	TEAM CARDS BLITZ CARDS
				SHORT YEARDAGE - GOAL LINE - 2 PT TAPE
GAME	PLAY CALLING	SECONDARY	SUBSTITUTION DB MATCH-UP	CALL CHART BACKFIELD	FRONTS	P.O.A.
LOCATION	FIELD	BOOTH	FIELD	FIELD	BOTH	FIELD
HALF-TIME	CO-ORDINATE HALF LIST 2ND HALF CALLS ADDRESS OFF.	COMPILE PASS REC. ISOLATE COVERAGE MEET WITH QB	MEET WITH WR	SITUATION CHART COMPILE RUN REC. MEET WITH RB	MEET WITH TE	ISOLATE FRONT MEET WITH OL

The size and complexity of any game plan and the way you install it is not the issue. What is at issue is if you as a coach have taken the time to be as detailed and specific in your game plan preparation as is needed to give your players the best chance to succeed.

Summary

The key elements in establishing your installation are:

1. Consolidate each situation and determine the size of each package.
2. Be very aware of how much overage you have in each area. The ratio of what you need versus what can be practiced is vital.
3. Structure you game plan discussions and layout so that everyone is on the same page as to what is being done.
4. Do not be afraid to delegate responsibilities for different aspects of the game plan.
5. Make sure at weeks end you have practiced what you had intended to practice and have covered all that you have needed to.
6. Make sure each coach knows what he is responsible for during the game.

Brian Billick is in his first season as an NFL head coach. He arrived in Baltimore as the architect of the 1998 Minnesota Vikings offense that shattered the NFL record for most points scored in a single season (556), breaking the old mark (541) set by the 1983 Washington Redskins.

In his five full seasons with the Vikings, Billick guided the Vikings into the top five in the NFL in yards per game, passing yards per game, completions and third down conversions. Under his guidance, the Vikings recorded their top three offensive seasons (1998, 1995, 1994) and five of the top 10 offensive seasons in team history

Billick joined the Vikings in 1992 as tight ends coach and was named offensive coordinator three games into the 1993 season.

Billick has also coached at Stanford, Utah State, San Diego State, and Brigham Young University. He began his coaching career in 1977 at the University of Redlands while helping coach a local high school team at the same time.

Coach Billick resides in Owings Mills, MD.