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. Table 3 & 4. There are many ways to format a mat drill session. Use these as an example and adapt from there. 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. 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 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. 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. 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!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.

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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.

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: 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? 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. 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.