When Washington & Jefferson head coach Mike Sirianni talks about practice, he does so with the conviction of someone who believes the way you prepare each day is the surest predictor of Saturday success. His program has lasted because it’s built on consistency and competition, not tricks or constant changes. Inside that structure, Sirianni and his staff continually adjust the details to keep players locked in, accountable, and ready to perform. That approach defines what makes Mike Sirianni practice design unique among small-college programs.
In his words, it’s about balancing consistency and variety—maintaining a steady rhythm players can trust, while adjusting the order of drills and the intensity of specific periods to spark energy when needed.
Balancing Consistency and Variety
Sirianni builds his program on structure. No matter if W&J lines up against Grove City or a non-conference opponent, the weekly routine stays the same. Players watch the same amount of film, practice for the same length of time, and meet the same standards for effort. That steadiness provides 18- to 23-year-olds with stability as they juggle academics, relationships, and life outside of football.
Within that structure, Sirianni uses variety as a tool. One day, practice might start with a team session, while another day might focus on field goals. At times, he adjusts competition periods, such as one-on-ones, to occur earlier or later in order to shake players out of rhythm. “You don’t want players to get bored,” Sirianni explained. This balance of routine and change sits at the core of Mike Sirianni practice design.
No Seven-on-Seven Policy
One of the most distinctive parts of Mike Sirianni practice design is his “no seven-on-seven” policy during the season. While many programs lean heavily on skeleton passing periods, Sirianni prefers to develop quarterbacks under live-rush conditions in full 11-on-11.
“I’d rather have my quarterbacks throw with a rush around them and feel the pocket,” he said.
He isn’t looking for a drill that just looks like pressure. He wants his quarterbacks to actually deal with it—calling protections, feeling the pocket, and checking plays with defenders in front of them.
Third-Down Every Day
Ask Sirianni about the heartbeat of his offensive preparation, and he’ll point to third down. At W&J, it’s not just another situational drill; it’s the money down, and the Presidents treat it as such. This everyday repetition reflects the discipline at the heart of Mike Sirianni practice design.
The Punt Priority
Perhaps the most striking element of Sirianni’s model is his unapologetic emphasis on the punt game. “To me, punt is the most game-changing play in football,” he said. While most programs slot punt into a rotation with other special teams units, W&J practices punt every single day—without exception.
A Philosophy Rooted in Habits
Taken together, Mike Sirianni practice design reveals a clear philosophy: habits win games. Consistency provides structure, variety keeps players engaged, competition raises the standard, and situational emphasis ensures no detail is overlooked.
The approach is deceptively simple but deeply intentional. Every day, players know they will rep third downs, cover punts, sharpen in live-rush periods, and refine their fundamentals. And every day, they also see the staff may adjust the order or intensity to inject passion into practice.
For Sirianni, success isn’t about finding something new each week. It’s about practicing with purpose, sticking to core values, and never allowing complacency to take root. At W&J, the details of Mike Sirianni practice design aren’t just preparation for the next game—they are the culture of the program itself.
Washington & Jefferson (34-14 vs. Grove City) – Game Stats
- Game was essentially over at halftime (24-0), and completely out of reach by middle of 3rd (34-0)
- Defense had more sacks & interceptions (2 each) than completions allowed (3), and Grove City only had 1 net yard passing on 15 dropbacks
- After punting on first drive, offense scored on next four possessions, including TD drives of 64, 60, 77
- Finished the game nearly doubling up Grove City in terms of first downs & yards
- Outgained Grove City 337 to 95 through the air, led by 15 receptions for 180 yards by Preseason AA Jacob Macosko
Related:
A Better Definition of Game Planning
The QC Blueprint: Practical Habits to Maximize Your Opportunity and Rise in the Ranks
More on Coach Mike Sirianni
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Transcript
John Snell (00:00)
Ronding out our honorees this week is Coach Mike Sirianni, head coach of Washington and Jefferson, the Hanson ratings head coach of the week presented by Tully. Mike, congrats on a great win this past weekend over Grove City. ⁓ Impressive win for your program and obviously ⁓ typical of you having a great win.
Mike Sirianni (00:24)
I appreciate it. It was a big, it was an important win. I we had not been 0-2 in a long, ever.
us to get a win important to get, know, it was obviously it’s the first conference game. So that’s important. But just just to get that feeling back again, you know, we hadn’t had that feeling in a while and it was really good to get a win.
John Snell (00:40)
How about, as you know, every successful program is built on a great staff. You want to just give a shout out to your staff before we go into what you’re going to share.
Mike Sirianni (00:52)
Yeah, I have a terrific staff. And one thing I’m proud about, and our offensive coordinator, Sean Glossick, on, I think a couple years ago, know, Phillip Bulwich is our defensive coordinator. But out of our coaches, the thing that makes me most proud is I think six or seven of them, I think maybe even eight if you count our part-time guys and volunteers are W &J grads.
They played for me, they played in this program, so it really shows that they believe in what we’re teaching the young men and they like to come back and share that. So I’m really proud that I have a bunch of W &J grads in my program, including our defensive coordinator Phil Bo, which really did a great job. mean, his back was really against the wall. didn’t play very well the first two weeks of the season defensively and he did a really good job preparing our defense this week against Grove City. He’s a 2019 grad, W &J did a great job.
John Snell (01:40)
Well, we know the value that you put in staff and yeah, you’ve had a great staff over the years. So thanks for sharing that with us. ⁓ Listeners, they enjoy learning from some of the best and we do consider you one of the best out there. So you talked about this consistent practice model and you talked about practicing with passion. Do you want to share?
that with our listeners.
Mike Sirianni (02:13)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it’s normal when you deal with 18 to 23 year olds or high school coaches, God bless you guys deal with 14 to 18 year olds. I don’t know if I could do that. You know, they they’re always going through something. There’s always something going on in their lives besides football. So we try to keep a consistent practice just so they have something that’s consistent. We don’t practice any longer if we played Granite City this week, what last week, or if we play a team, a lesser team. Okay, we practice the same every week.
We watch the same amount of films. We meet the same amount of time. ⁓ So I think we try to keep that constant level of consistency going on. One thing that I did think that was missing from our practices the first two weeks, because we, in some way, we lost so many seniors last year. ⁓
I mean, almost like most division three schools, it was like a double class. You got your COVID seniors and your four year seniors and they all both graduated. a lot of, it wasn’t just us, I’m sure a lot of teams feel this way. So we kind of graduated with a double class last year. And I didn’t feel that we were practicing with much passion. I thought we were practicing hard.
We were given effort, it was like, it wouldn’t matter if we made a big play, it wouldn’t matter if we gave up a big play on the defensive side to the scout team. It just didn’t seem like we had that passion and that’s something that we really focused on. We have core values at WNJ and compete. Passion is the second one, confidence is the third one, but that’s something that we focus on a lot. And I just didn’t feel like we were doing that. So I thought that we kind of turned it up a notch in terms of the passion that we practiced with and really got.
gone
after it a little bit more last week.
John Snell (03:52)
Would you say that a lot of that is influenced by the coaching staff or were your guys, you know, were you asking them to be a little more energetic, a little more enthusiastic, a ⁓ little harder on the players and, know, in terms of getting them to practice with more passion?
Mike Sirianni (04:10)
Yeah,
I think we went after a little more. added during the bye week, you we added some more one-on-ones. We always do one-on-ones every week during camp, every day during camp, excuse me. And sometimes you get away with that during the season because you’re trying to get all these team sessions in and you want to hit this and that team session. So we got back into some competitive stuff, one-on-ones with the DBS in the, in the White House. something we went, and I love that because those are like two pit bulls going at each other when they’re doing it. And I kind of stirred up a little bit. know, the Syrian brothers have been known to talk a
little bit during games and practices a little bit. ⁓ So I kind of stirred that up and they got after we kept score. The losers had to do push up. So I think that’s just, you doing a little bit more competition helped us a little bit. And yeah, you know, a little bantering between the coaches wasn’t, isn’t, isn’t never a bad thing. It’s all in good fun. ⁓ So, you know that, yeah, I think the coaches did a great job of turning it up a notch and I didn’t know, and the players followed a little bit.
John Snell (05:05)
Yeah, I mean, you talk about consistent practice models, Mike, but when you want some things that change in practice in terms of how you practice, do you feel it’s important to change the way, you know, the practice ⁓ plan, meaning what you’re doing, how much time you’re spending on team, how much time you may spend in one-on-ones? Do you think that there’s a change that’s necessary for that?
Mike Sirianni (05:18)
Yeah.
think the order you changing the order up does a little bit I mean we always do an A’s on A’s.
We always do a good on good session and we always try to do a good on good seven on seven session because we don’t do seven on seven. That’s one thing that I’ve gotten away with with life practice. We do not do seven on seven during the season. We do third down passing. ⁓ So I just, you know, I’d rather have my quarterbacks throw with a rush around them and feeling in me in the pocket and doing just a seven on seven. Now that being said, we do do a good, do some A’s on A’s seven on seven during the season. we, you know, sometimes we’ll do field goal first. Sometimes we’ll do it last. Sometimes we’ll start with a team session.
I
⁓ think that’s that’s good. Maybe you know what you know stretch have a pre-practice quick stretch Start with a team session. ⁓ So yeah, we will switch the order Rambo You were really consistent in that we always try to hit us a week. We’ve been we weren’t great in third downs on Saturday. We were five
I think five or six or 15, something like that. But we’ve been really good at third downs in the last years. That’s a money down. We do third downs every day. I know some people like, I’ll do third downs this day. We do it every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then on a Friday in our walkthrough, we run through them again. So all five days, we’ll do five plays of third downs. Whether we use them on a game or not, we have them there. So we know, because it’s such an important down in football, we have to convert. So that’s something that we do every single day. But we’ll switch the order up and things and sometimes three,
throwing
a little competition. ⁓ But you got it, because you don’t want to be bored. The other thing we do every single day is punt. I we punt every day. And to me, that’s the most game-changing play in football. ⁓ Whether you drop up, we drop to our punt or drop the punt when we were up 34-7, I’m feeling good. And then all of sudden, coaches, you drop a punt. And even though there’s only seven minutes to go, and we drop a punt, I’m about really, you know, to…
my Italian temper on him because you don’t want to so we, punt every day and we punt, we practice that more than any play that in, in, and it’s not even close. And, and, you know, if you know our offense, we don’t punt a whole lot, but still we practice it every single day. So I think that’s important ⁓ to just do that. And then the other special teams will try to, try to hit, you know, kickoff, kickoff return every other day, punt, punt, return every other day, but we’ll punt every single, every single day.
John Snell (07:20)
you
How about extra point field goal? Is that something that you guys do every day?
Mike Sirianni (07:51)
That’s why we were nine and one last year instead of 10. No, ⁓ you know, we had some Carnegie Mellon schemed us up and blocked two extra points in a field go against us and like overtime loss last year and and ⁓ So yes, we had we had been doing that anyway, but now we’re doing it
Not with a live rush, but at least with players trying with pads going into, and obviously, know what? I’m a pretty big Eagles fan. You saw how important that was to them a couple weeks ago. They brought a field goal to win, two field goals to win the game. So again, that’s another game changing place. So yes, we will practice extra point every single day. Super, super, super important.
John Snell (08:30)
Just real quick, going back to your thought of you don’t have seven on seven. So in working your pass game, is your pass game all 11 on 11 stuff? Is that how you work?
Mike Sirianni (08:41)
Yeah,
like I said during during we will do an A’s on A’s, 7 on 7 just.
Just six plays just to get the blood blowing a little bit with the kids, let them compete a little bit. And knowing that we’re not gonna see the same coverage that we might see in a game and knowing that they’re not gonna see the same concepts. We still wanna compete, but then after that, we know we do not do seven, we do all 11 on 11 like we’ll do, we’ll hit, we do that part of our third downs, okay? And we’ll run 12 plays, it’s pretty much, you could call third down, you call team passing, call it whatever you want. ⁓
But I just have felt that I’d rather have, you know, so many people with 11 on 11 or seven on seven are holding the bags up over their heads and they’re simulating a rush. I’m like, why not just have a rush? Okay. I mean, why not just let him, I mean, if we don’t pick up the butts, obviously they’re not allowed to touch the quarterback or, you know, they get really mad or they’re not even allowed to get, they have to run by, but at least the elites, gets him used our quarterback. Who was the first year starter? It gets him used to being in the pocket and feeling that.
that rush around him so when he gets into the game he’s you know he’s instead of just seven on seven I mean shoot I I mean I think you could complete half well maybe not half maybe you know 25 % no I’m just kidding all right but most people are gonna compete complete classes versus seven on seven you would hope you would but I want to see them around with the rush around them how they move in the pocket how they slide the protections how they keep the back end last last week we played against a unbelievable player
at Grove City named Ben Bladle. And we had to know where he was every single play because we were not going to let, I’ve seen him beat teams. He’s beaten teams before and we were not going to let just one player do that. So I think that’s really important to have the quarterback just not sit back there and throw, but to be, to be around pressure and to be able to make protection checks and things of that nature. Might take a little longer. You might not get into many reps and as I know, as I’m a rep person, but it’s, still think it’s worth it to have that pressure around him as he’s thrown.
John Snell (10:38)
Well, Mike, we appreciate you sharing. ⁓ Again, congrats on a great win. We wish you and the staff the best going forward. ⁓ knowing you and the success that you’ve had, I’m sure that you’ll continue to have success throughout the season. So again, good luck and appreciate your time.
Mike Sirianni (10:58)
Thanks, Kirsten. I appreciate it.