9/27 practice

Tonight's practice was another muddy one (sorry for all the laundry, parents). Sometimes it is nice to have to practice in a muddy, slippery environment during the week so that you can be prepared to face that adversity on game day, though.

A note to parents: it is starting to get darker right around our normal ending time of 7pm. In the coming practices, I would recommend coming to pick up your child around 6:45pm, as the practices may end a little early. In the next few weeks, it may end even sooner than that. Practice will continue to start at 5pm until further notice.

See you Thursday for our pregame practice.

9/26 practice

Offensive practice tonight in some pretty muddy conditions (sorry for the laundry in advance). We added one new play that can be useful in nasty weather and slippery conditions, something that we definitely had to deal with in practice and dealt with on Saturday. Unfortunately we hadn't gotten to it in time for last week's game.

We finished practice with "perfect 20s," which is always a good way to keep the players on their toes.

Defensive practice tomorrow....see you then.

Tosa East

Unfortunately another loss today against Wauwatosa East, 19-0. It was a 0-0 game at half. Hard to explain this one. Need a better effort from the top to the bottom. It seemed like the first score by Tosa took all of the wind out of our sail.

Back to work on Monday.

9/22 practice

Our pre-game practice started a little iffy tonight, but after a few sprints to get the players' attention, things finished pretty well after that. As a reward we did the "lineman challenge," which pits the linemen against the remainder of the team in a pass-catching contest.

For the season, the linemen are 1-1 in the linemen challenge.

Tosa East behind the high school at 4pm on Saturday, warmups at 3:15pm. See you then.

9/20 practice

Last night's practice was pretty sharp and pretty intense. There were a handful of bumps and bruises by the end of the night, but you always have to work on your tackling.

A reminder to parents that this week's game will be at the field behind the high school (near the practice fields) and not at town hall. It begins at 4pm, warmups to start at 3:15.

See you tomorrow.

9/19 practice

Last night's offensive practice was kind of interesting. We talked about the game last Saturday as well as the upcoming game this Saturday. I was pleased with certain aspects of the game - I thought we protected the football well - but anytime you lose there is plenty to work on.

We went to the blocking sled as a team to work on our blocking. We added a few new plays - nothing fancy - and emphasized finishing the play and going to the whistle. We did a few drills that require you to go to the ground and then get up quickly to focus on never giving up on a play, something that we have done once or twice the past few games.

Tonight will be a defensive practice. See you then.

Brookfield Central

We dropped another one this week to Brookfield Central, 18-0. However, the score is not indicative of how we played, in my opinion. We did a much better job protecting the football (we had only one turnover, which was the result of a poor play call on my part and took place at the end of the game when we were simply trying tomake something happen).

What did us in this time around was some untimely penalties, taking some poor angles on some outside runs by Brookfield Central, and a failure to break big plays. We also got a little unlucky on one of Brookfield's runs as their player stepped out of bounds, but the referee crew was short a second linesmen and nobody had the proper angle to get a good look at it. I told the players that if we would've taken better angles in the first place, we wouldn't have to worry about such a thing. Credit to Brookfield for not quitting on the play, no question.

Brookfield is a very good program, however, and I was encouraged by our effort overall. We just need to break some big plays and continue to get better in other areas. If we protect the football the rest of the season the same way we did today, I'll definitely be pleased with that part of the game.

Back to work on Monday, see you then.

9/15 practice

Last night's pregame practice was a little sloppy, but we finished pretty well. I think the players realize that, while everybody makes mistakes and always will, there are certain types of mistakes that are more preventable than others and that it is important to take control of those types of things.

Saturday's game against Brookfield Central will be at home, warmups at 11:15 just like last week. See you then!

9/13 practice

Our second intense practice night in a row as we focused on defense, our typical Tuesday plan. I really like the effort we are getting; hopefully we can avoid some of the mistakes that we have been struggling with as well.

Conditioning was a little light tonight given the smoke that was lingering just a bit.

Just a reminder, our next practice is Thursday. It will be a normal practice, behind the high school with normal practice gear. Last week's practice at Town Hall was a one-time thing, and I'm glad we did it. But the Monday-Tuesday-Thursday routine behind the high school should hold firm the rest of the season.

See you Thursday.

9/12 practice

Last night we got back to work after a tough loss to Brookfield East and after dealing with a difficult injury to one of our quarterbacks.

We spent some time talking through certain issues and doing a "chalk talk" type of session. Sometimes I think it is beneficial to the players to put some of our plays up on the white board and show them where our focus needs to be on a particular play.

I also asked the players if they were familiar with the 1999 St. Louis Rams and the 2001 New England Patriots. Since most of the players were barely born when those teams were around (and some of them weren't born at all), they knew a little bit but not a lot. They knew that both teams won the Super Bowl. They knew that the Rams' quarterback was Kurt Warner, who was the NFL MVP that season, and they of course know that New England's quarterback was Tom Brady. What they didn't know was that both teams had their starting quarterbacks lost for the season before or shortly after the season started.

I don't know if that helped, but I do know that we had a very aggressive and intense practice afterwards and the players clearly seem eager for their second game of the season. Tonight will be a defensive practice, and I hope the effort from last night carries over.

See you tonight.

Brookfield East

Very good effort today but fell just short to Brookfield East, 12-6. Our players played hard but in the end Brookfield just made one or two fewer mistakes than we did, and that was the difference (as it often is in football).

Unfortunately one of our players incurred a significant injury and will be out for the season. While nobody ever wants to see another player get hurt, it is an unfortunate reality of the game that injuries can and will happen. I know all of our players are going to give everything they have to support their teammate. I know the coaches will as well.

Back to work on Monday, 5pm at the high school practice fields. If we get this same effort week in and week out, with just a couple fewer mistakes, we'll be just fine.

See you Monday.

1st game coming up

Last night's pregame practice was a nice review of offense, defense, and special teams. A special thanks to parents for bringing everybody up to Town Hall so that our players could get a feel for their home field.

Saturday's game for the orange team is at home, scheduled to start at noon (will finish after the 7th grade), warmups will start at 11:15AM.

See you there!

9/7 practice - note about Thursday 9/8

Tonight was a defensive practice, and it was pretty intense and fairly sharp. Hopefully we're just one practice away from being ready.

Tomorrow's pre-game practice will be the normal time, 5pm, but at the field above Town Hall (where the games are played) rather than at the usual practice fields. The 6th grade Black head coach and myself thought it would be fun for the players to have their first true pregame practice on their home game field. We are also asking them to wear their game jerseys and game pants, full pads.

We will get out early (6:45pm) so that everybody can get home in time to watch the kickoff to the NFL season.

Game on Saturday is at home, starts at noon, warmups to start at 11:15AM. See you tomorrow.

9/6 practice

It was back at it today after a nice long holiday weekend. Remember, we have practice scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) due to missing this past Saturday and Monday.

Tonight's offensive practice was essentially a refresher course. We are not likely to add to the playbook for our first game, so right now we want to make sure we have everything down. Tonight it appeared as though we did. We did make some mistakes (jumping on the wrong snap count, for instance) but for the most part the players seemed to be pretty familiar with the plays.

See you tomorrow.

9/1 practice

Tonight's "pregame practice" was a little on the iffy side, as we had a little bit of trouble maintaining our focus. Perhaps it was the first day of school that got into our heads. Hopefully we are able to turn it around next week before our first game.

A reminder that there will be no practice on Saturday or Monday. Instead, we will go Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday next week before our first game.

Have a great Labor Day weekend.