I was recently talking to a former D1a head coach (retired) a few days ago. I was asking him a lot of questions and got some really interesting replies. Basically the jist of it is this.

1. Practice time: NOone (that is what he said, but maybe he means "hardly anyone") uses the fully allotted 20 hrs/week of practice time allowed by the NCAA for a week.

2. Days: His teams would practice on Sunday, rest Tues and told them to come back ready on Tues.


3. Length: He tells players, "you can sit here and get it right and we are done in 1 1/2 hrs, or you can dink (actually said a different word) around and we can practice for over 2 hrs, it is your choice". Practices NEVER went above 2 1/2 AND would only go 2 1/4 hrs if they were working on special teams that day. relied heavily on the leaders of the team to "get a feel" for how much is too much or not enough. RE: 20 hrs/week. When you take that a team practices 4 days of the week and they have allotted 20 hrs, do people really think these guys practice 5 hrs in a day? really? He said intensity is always a matter of trying to balance injuries and not being in a situation where they team isn't ready for game speed.

I also talked to a BYU defensive player before the WYO game. JC transfer kid and asked him a LOT of questions regarding practice time and intensity. He said that he is practicing has hard has he has EVER practiced. The conversation was a lot more in depth than that, but lets just say that he hardly thinks practices at BYU are "easy" and that Bronco it to light or doesn't spend enough time getting his teams ready. This is coming from a non-LDS who was at the JC level and also spends a lot of time in the offseason going to private facilities to better his skills. Also has a relative on his old coaching that that pushed him very very hard. I am NOT saying that he is right or others are wrong, but I will say that the opinion that BM is too easy on his guys, isn't totally accurate.

btw, I also recently got an email from a father of a current player that confirms this is well (he was replying to my post on another board regarding the similar subject).

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