Every Period Is a Drive: How Carnegie Mellon Builds Tempo, Rhythm, and Real Competition in Practice

John Snell (00:00)
We opened this week on the offensive side of the ball where Carnegie Mellon put together one of the most explosive outings in the country, a 70 to 29 win over Dickinson. Head coach Ryan Larson and offensive coordinator Andy Helms share the duties for the Tartans and together they had their offense humming, spreading the ball around, controlling tempo and keeping the pressure on all afternoon. Coaches, congratulations on again a great win for putting up lot of offensive points.

⁓ And congrats for being recognized and we’re happy to be on with you.

Andy Helms (00:31)
Thank

Ryan Larsen (00:35)
Yeah, thank you. Absolutely want to to shout out our whole offensive staff and which is Andy and I on here. But you Jeff Simmons, our wide receivers coach, Bernie Colbert, our offensive line coach, which our offensive line was selected t3football.com O line of the week. So can’t can’t not shout them out. And then the tight ends are a huge part of what we do. So coach McGee, so our whole staff and obviously our most importantly, our players for making it all go.

Andy Helms (00:36)
Thanks for having us.

John Snell (01:02)
Well, we appreciate that. And ⁓ as you know, we asked that our recipients share an idea with our listeners. And you talked about, you know, practice mimicking what you do in a game and, you know, your different blocks of practice and how now you’re using a little more good on good. ⁓ How about you guys share a little bit of that with us, Ryan?

Ryan Larsen (01:26)
Yeah, I’ll talk about the structure part. I’ll let Andy take the good on good part. So from the structure standpoint, you know, we, base everything on five minute segments and practice. And really the thought process is, we’re trying to mimic drives as much as we can and the feeling of a game of going on and off. And so you may have the one offense out there versus the scout team and it’s an eight play set and you’ve got five minutes to get it done. But if we finish it in three minutes.

you just earned yourself two minutes of rest, right? Or if it went to four minutes and 52 seconds, you only had eight seconds left in that period, well, you didn’t earn as much rest, but you got your plays done and then you’re off and then we’re usually then like onto a special team or something different. And so it really mimics that feeling of going on and off the field. But I also think the nice thing about it too is like, if you’re having a great set, it’s great. It’s great energy. You flow it into the next thing you’re doing. But sometimes we don’t have great sets, right? ⁓

Andy Helms (02:16)
Thanks.

Ryan Larsen (02:25)
You know, if it’s a tough set and we’re messing up a little bit, it also allows us to kind of end the set, pull it off, get to the special team, regroup a little bit. It’s usually where I’ll find the leaders of the offense and be like, Hey, we got to clean it up next time we’re out there. And then we’re onto it. I just think yet again, it’s so similar to a game. It’s a one and O mentality. Like let’s go one and O this drive, right? Our goal is to score. And if we can do that, great. But if we don’t, now we have to go communicate, know, readjust, fix what we’re doing.

and then get back. So that’s kind of what we do from a practice standpoint overall. I we practice for an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes tops. So we are fast in and out. And then I’ll let Andy talk a little bit about the good on good stuff we’ve been doing more this year.

Andy Helms (03:09)
Yeah, I mean, I think to Ryan’s point, ⁓ the good on good is great just to get.

to get your guys out there going against good, fast speed. Not that the young guys can’t provide a good look, which they do during the scout team periods. Right. ⁓ But, I do think, you know, just being able to also like, I’m laughing because I’m drawing cards. Like I don’t have to draw cards up for those two periods we’re doing today and crossover because coach give me, he’s going to be calling it up for the defense. And, and, you know, I don’t have to draw that gives change about half of my time of getting cards ready for that period. Those two periods or whatever. But Ryan.

John Snell (03:36)
you

Andy Helms (03:45)
Ryan is able to then communicate with Coach Gibbany, hey, what are you guys seeing this week? What do you wanna give us? What do you wanna give us in terms of looks defensively? And we kinda are able to help each other out that way. ⁓ And again, saves some time, frankly, as you go to prepare. And then also, you’re getting better competition and then you can have some focus. I think one of the things that Ryan does exceptionally well ⁓ as we plan practice is giving a focus to each five minute period or whatever.

And then like he said, you when we’re in that five minute period, we’re in that five minute period. ⁓ and good, bad or indifferent, we’re onto the next, you know, and transitioning from period to period is something I thought he’s really done a great job of when he came here. Just tell you like, guys, we, got a role. Like, you know, we’re not going to, know, you’re, may be thinking you’re, you’re going to get that full five minutes in that period. You just know, I better plan for four because we’re going to be running and he’s going to be waiting for us and then next period. Right. So I do think it’s, it’s, it’s good to, to.

to have that, hey, on to the next, keep coach on the run. And I think we get a lot out of our players in that regard. And then also ⁓ kind of getting back to how we plan practice and how we utilize the time. As we go through our team periods, it allows that focus of, the twos are doing these six plays and they’re focusing on maybe two different sets, right? Maybe three plays from one formation group or package, if you will. And then another three plays against two different looks. ⁓

And really you can kind of talk to the quarterbacks or the guys about, we showed you some tough looks today, literally. And here’s how we should have handled that or you can even in between before the specials or right after when you do get done. Hey, the next set just know we’re gonna be showing you the four down looks or whatever. We’re gonna go back to those tough looks that we showed you. ⁓ And just so they can kind of reaffirm what we’re gonna do and kind of give them the answers to the quiz ahead of time.

John Snell (05:23)
Yeah. ⁓

Andy Helms (05:44)
ready

to roll. And then after we get through team, have a great period. You know, Ryan, I don’t know if I can share this as well, but like we have a great run review period. And that really allows us if anything was bad during those team sets, we can go back and clean that up. And it’s not how we have to wait till tomorrow to clean up. We clean that up. And then we try and you know, get the ones run in some of the reps, the plays the twos had, we already have the cards drawn. Let’s get some some more work in with with

And so I think just being really efficient and maximizing your time, again, all within how Ryan and Structure’s practice, allowing us to coach and get the most ⁓ amount of work done and the time given, super efficient in my opinion in terms of how we can get that stuff cleaned up.

John Snell (06:33)
Ryan, I’m curious, know, when you, you know, over our history, most coaches, I’m assuming you would probably agree that, you know, most practices are two hours, maybe two hours and 15 minutes. When you said that you’re an hour and 30, hour and 45, I’m curious as to why your practice is a little shorter than what most practices would be. And I’m sure you have a good reason for it. Tell the listeners, you know, your thoughts on that.

Andy Helms (06:45)
We say thank you very much.

Thanks.

Ryan Larsen (07:01)
Yeah. mean, honestly, we have academics to deal with and at 6.35, I got to blow a whistle for 7pm class guys to get out of there. And what I never want to have happen is our players feel like they’re leaving to go to class and they’re missing something really substantial. And so to Coach Helm’s point, what we’ll do that last 15, 20 minutes of practice after I blow that whistle is we’ll go back to kind of cleaning things up.

we’ll go back to individual and group work. So all the scout team stuff and all the special team stuff has already been done. But really from five o’clock to 6.35, that hour and 35 minutes, that’s where we get the bulk of our work done. And that includes walkthrough, stretch, individual, group work, team, scout teams, it’s all done in there. And then that last bit, we kind of go back to the fundamentals. We go back to…

you know, the idea of group work, clean it up. You know, we didn’t, we didn’t ID this correctly. And honestly, most of it’s done out of necessity. But I also will be honest, as we get to now in the season, I’m starting to trim a period or two off at the end of practices still. Cause I think from a mental psyche standpoint, it’s good for our young men too. It’s getting darker, it’s colder, know, freshness is everything.

You’ve got to be fresh and excited to play. And I think that that was something that helped us last week too. We started trimming back last week ⁓ and our guys were ready to roll come Saturday when we played Dickinson.

John Snell (08:42)
I’m also curious, Ryan, because I’ve always had always been intrigued with practice efficiency and we used to do, you know, blocks as well. And they weren’t all always five minutes, but for a majority of the blocks they were. I’m always curious though, to know if people time that the essentially the transition from going from your team period to your special teams period, how much time do you give?

your guys and your coaches to get that next period set up because that’s time. You know what mean? That’s time.

Ryan Larsen (09:13)
Yeah. That’s, you know, that’s where Andy, Andy

Andy Helms (09:17)
Thanks.

Ryan Larsen (09:19)
alluded to it. my philosophy and I come from the Al Bagnoly world of, being coached and, you know, when that clock hits that period, let’s say it’s period five and period five, we should be doing PAT field goal. Like we better be kicking PATs and field goals within seconds after that horn went off to start period five. So you’re better off ending period four.

a little early, get done, 30 seconds, 45 seconds left on that clock so we can transition. ⁓ I will say that I’m a little more loose when it comes to offense and defense when they’re trying to get their scout looks. I may tap my foot a little bit, but not as hard ⁓ because I know that those looks are so important. But yeah, we really want to be on to that next thing when the horn hits and.

You know, the grace period is probably valued in seconds. We’re probably talking about 10, 15 seconds at most. And then you start to hear V holler, hey, we’re 30 seconds in and we haven’t kicked the ball yet. Hey, we’re 45 seconds in and we haven’t, you know, snapped the ball yet. And so, you know, sometimes that’s a multitude of things. you know, it could be players needing to get a little bit faster in their transitioning. It could be coaches getting things set up.

Andy Helms (10:11)
you

Yes.

Ryan Larsen (10:38)
But I think yet again, it just feeds back to like, just want to be really efficient, right? Really, really efficient. And ⁓ I’m not naive. Like the first time we do scout punt versus our punt block, the first time we do it in a five minute period in practice, it may be a little slower that first time. But the second five minute period that we’re doing it in practice, we better be rolling. And I understand that may be a little bit of a part of that give and take. ⁓

because we don’t have the luxury of a lot of extra meeting time and a lot of extra, you know, walkthroughs and all that. ⁓ But I think our guys do a really nice job with it. And I think yet again, it feeds back to the players. Like they know we’re not wasting time either. You’re not going to stand around and practice. We’re going to get you in and get you out. Get the work done and then we’re on to the next day.

John Snell (11:20)
Yep.

I think that’s critical that the players recognize that you’re trying to be efficient. They appreciate that. I used to hear from kids, ⁓ coach, practices seem to be taking longer and they don’t like that. So the fact that you are attentive to trying to be on time, trying to be efficient and getting them out there or off of there an hour and 35 minutes, I think that’s really good. So obviously something’s working.

and working pretty well there. So ⁓ congratulations again. We really appreciate your time and we wish you the best the rest of the way. I know you got some obviously important games coming up and again, we wish you the best.

Ryan Larsen (12:09)
Thank you, John. Appreciate it.

Andy Helms (12:11)
I’m seeing it.

John Snell (12:12)
Thank you guys.

Andy Helms (12:13)
See ya.

Ryan Larsen (12:14)
something.