Keith Grabowski (00:02.36)
Great corny. We’re good. We’re back for another art of practice presented by Go Route. And joining me today is assistant coach at Binghamton High School in New York. He’s also an account executive at Go Route, Shane Heard. Shane, it’s great to see you here on the podcast. I usually see you around at clinics. That’s right. But it’s good to get you here and talk some ball.

Shane Hurd (00:22.985)
Thanks for having me, Coach. I appreciate it.

Keith Grabowski (00:25.368)
So Shane, you you bring 26 years of experience and what you know about running an efficient practice from the things that you guys do at Go Route to Binghamton. and that’s the focus here today. And especially as we get into the season, the the way that, you know, especially something like Go Route can help the efficiency of practice. You know, I know as we get into the grind of the season, the the time we have diminishes. And myself,

Being at a smaller school, field space is the issue. So it’s not like we can go extra because when we’re ending practice, girls’ soccer is coming on, or there’s a you know a junior high game or whatever it might be. So we have to be pretty good about staying on time, right? And I think everybody today understands that the efficiency of practice really is is what’s gonna make things effective for you. The longer you have guys standing around, the easier things

are crumbling. So we’d love to hear about your process and some of the things you guys do at Binghamton to to help run an efficient practice.

Shane Hurd (01:31.518)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, we wanna be cognizant of the kids’ time as well, right? And and like you said, we wanna we wanna minimize that standing around. and you know, having having individual periods that really focus on what we’re gonna do and having a group period that’s really gonna focus on what we’re gonna do that week, I think those help with the efficiency piece of things. And then having a a a quality, you know, team period. And I think GoRout really helps in those areas. So if you’re only getting

you know, eight to ten minutes for an inside run or for a seven on seven, being able to throw the GoRouts on those guys and getting 15 to 16 reps with no standing around, just calling the play and going. And now they know it. And the kids who are on the scout team, they have an idea. So when you get to the team period, now you could go even faster, right? You can get even more reps. and not being able to or not having to stop the practice, right? To correct something right off the bat. And allowing the coaches—

You know, the offensive line coach shouldn’t be worried about what the D-line is doing during a scout rep, right? We want him to watch to make sure that pull happened correctly or that pass set was good. We don’t need him concentrating on the linebacker. you know, when I first started using this at Cornell University 11, 12 years ago, I became a better quarterback’s coach because I wasn’t yelling at the the overhang linebacker to carry three in an RPO. I was more worried about the quarterback’s head and where his eyes were.

And then were his feet set to make the throw or to hand the ball off in an RPO. So, you know, you really maximize, especially high school with a smaller staff, right? Or some of our smaller colleges that have such small staffs. We don’t want these guys having to coach up the scout team, right? We want them to coach the position that they’re, you know, because they they always have an offensive and a defensive position, right? And in high school, we don’t have, you know, 10 coaches that, you know, this isn’t my interior D-line guy. No, he’s the O-line and the D-line guy. So I want him to coach the O-line

during the practice and not worry about what what the defense is doing is and and vice versa, right? so obviously we have someone who’s in charge of sending the plays in, but once the play hits, he’s coaching his position. He’s not worried about what the scout team’s doing. So I think not only from a, you know, from a, you know, more reps standpoint, because you’re gonna get more reps using GoRout, right? But they’re better reps. They’re better reps because now you’re doing a lot more coaching of of the kids that you want to coach at that time.

Keith Grabowski (03:55.35)
No doubt. I I know now being on a a small staff, and it w this was a really a bit of an adjustment for me coming back from the college level. You you forget some of those things that I did this at one point in my career. I, you know, coached at a school that had two way players, but now we’re, you know, a small roster. We’re about 40 guys, grades nine through twelve. We have seven coaches, and so the the

The coach’s time is at a a premium. Their focus is at a premium too. And like what you said there, you know, I don’t have to be worried about lining these guys up a certain way every time that they can get it right there and go. you know, doing it without go route, certainly presents some challenges in how many reps can we get in? I mean, like I like I pointed out to start, like the time we have is the time we have. We we’re getting kicked off the field, right? So

You know, that that’s the major issue. Like you know, do I wanna lose six reps of of team on a on a Wednesday? Probably not. You know, that stuff becomes very important to what were those reps we lost? I mean, it’s it is the right now for me been an exercise it has been an exercise in both efficiency and in simplicity too, and rethinking like how much with the time I have, what are we gonna do? Like

You know, forty for us it’s split in half, you know, forty five minutes to fifty minutes. you better be pretty detailed in here’s the things we’re working on and here’s the reps that we’re getting. We don’t have a lot of time to waste reps or try a thing here or there.

Shane Hurd (05:39.756)
Yeah. No, I mean and and having your script, you know, and and sticking to that. Hey, this is what we’re gonna do. And, you know, not jumping all over the place and right and being efficient on the front end is obviously gonna help you you know, during the practice time as well. and then, you know, when when when you have a tool like GoRout and you’re putting them on the offense, that’s so much less less standing around for the defense, right? So the defense has to be locked in more from a you know, like like it’s a game

Because it’s coming out fast, right? You don’t have the coach standing there with the binder or showing a bunch of guys different different pages and things. No, the the the whistle blows and the next play’s in just like the game, right? And you’re gonna get that next practice snap off in about fifteen to twenty seconds, which might be faster than someone’s going in a game. And if you want to go faster and and you know, kind of double barrel your skill if you’re going against an up tempo team, you could do that as well. But, you know, I kind of think that, you know, with the use of GoRout you’re you’re running

more plays against your defense than than they would see in a time frame of a game on a Friday night. Right. They’re just seeing more reps. So there’s not that standing around. They have to be locked in. If we’re having a twenty five minute team period, they have to be locked in for that twenty five minutes ’cause plays are coming at them pretty quickly. So really mimic some some game situation there as well. Yeah.

Keith Grabowski (06:58.794)
I I think that’s so important. And that’s something I’ve seen again over the the course of the season as as we’ve really focused on the identity of of this team and how do they best operate. I think coming from the college level where everybody seems to be up tempo, or at least in practice you do that to the high school level here, as we got these guys functioning more in operating quicker, I felt

On game day, we also played absolutely better. I think that pace of the game, which I think, you know, when I look at it now, it’s probably a little bit slower on game day game day than it is during the week because the officials slow you down, right? Guys ch trying to change out the ball when you don’t want to, all those kinds of things. and honestly, like

You know, for us here a lot a lot of these officials are getting older. They’re not moving as well as they were. And some of them I remember back from my high school days seeing again, like, You’re still doing this? Like

Shane Hurd (08:01.636)
And they’re doing four games a weekend now.

Keith Grabowski (08:03.498)
And God bless him. Yeah. I mean

Shane Hurd (08:05.442)
Lack of officials. They’re Thursday, Friday, Saturday morning, maybe a J V game and some Saturday nights. I mean, these guys are working an awful lot. So yeah, they’ve they’ve slowed down a bit as far as spotting the ball. Sometimes it helps. But sometimes when you want to go fast, it’s not helping you too much.

Keith Grabowski (08:22.018)
Yeah, well I it’s something you brought up too in in the I think before we got going, just the fact that you know, you can use these in install too. And just thinking of, you know, the situation right now, small rosters, I mean, we do have to cross train guys, but it’s not always easy for them to remember everything they’re doing. and again, it goes to do you want to rate waste the rep, right? I’ll coach it up on film. Well

I got him, one guy messing up the whole picture. Maybe it’s better to have something on him that gets him up to speed, won’t be able to have it on game day. But I think that it’s all a process in learning of I see it, then I go do it, that there will be that connection there that’ll get it. I I think quicker than if you just put him out there and he starts to fail.

Shane Hurd (09:11.366)
And and what do we do on Mondays anyway, right? So, hey, we think last week we saw a 4-2-5. This week this week we’re seeing a 3-3 stack. Hey, put them on the offense and hey, here’s how we’re gonna block power to this, here’s how we’re gonna block counter, here’s how we’re gonna block inside zone. Instead of me standing there saying, ‘You two have you two, you’re the kicker, you’re the wrapper, I’m just hitting the button and they’re going, right? And we’re not going full speed, we’re going through it, but they can look down and get, alright, hey, this is inside zone, so obviously.’

You know, we want to climb here. But now they’re seeing it how I’m doing it against a different front, right? Because for five days they blocked an overfront. Now, now it’s different, right? So being able to utilize those things, you know, the the GoRouts to do that, right? Just to have that teaching. You know, it’s not so much, hey, we’re not going rely on these all week, but in the beginning, hey, let’s let’s teach it the way, you know, we haven’t seen a 3-3 stack yet. Hey, let’s teach it the way we we think it should be taught and use the GoRouts and and get

you know, you know, you get our your your base six, seven runs from the left hash and then again from the right hash in six or seven minutes without talking through. And now the, you know, you’re talking to the linemen and the wide receivers aren’t paying attention. And now, you know, you got to get those guys locked back in. No, if you put just put 11 GoRouts on them and hey, here’s how we’re running this, boom, go. Alright. Here’s how we’re running this, boom, go. Any questions? No. Right. That’s going to speed up that that teaching part of it when you do see a different front.

Keith Grabowski (10:36.908)
Yeah, I I talked to I think Danny about this a little bit too with the install and you know what they’re doing at the college level. and they were talking more camp, but I think, you know, that’s a tremendous use of this tool on a on a Monday. Cause you know, you look at it, you’re you’re going against maybe a base or whatever. So there’s not going to be a lot of variation. You’re not moving around a lot or or blitzing guys, like you’re just trying to get those base things down. Yep.

Around your guys, I think prime example, you know, one of one of our and he’s good, he’s a smart kid. It took till about the third rep of doing it. Finally, yesterday, you know, we had one adjustment because we saw too high where he he had an adjustment on his route and he just it wasn’t clicking with him. And finally we’re about to run it the fourth time, and he turns around and looks at me and he points. He’s like, I got it now. Like it, but it had been me, you know. Yeah, what happened? Well, I

Right, waste three reps. We we don’t have go. I told you we’ll have them next year, but but we we don’t have that. And now if I had something like that on a Monday, put it on them and too. It’s in you know, I know there’s guys who maybe they only buy one set, but I think really easy for your guys who are on the other side to see what they’re looking at on there and telling that defensive lineman, Hey, I need you in a three technique or I need you up here. Like that’s part of their learning too. I think all of that when you look at

And in some of this is research. I’ve been really researching just how people learn. that will be just as effective of him moving that guy rather than you jumping on because he understands, like, they’re gonna be aligned here. I see it on this, I can adjust that guy and and it’ll help that kid during the week too, who he’s going against to understand it.

Shane Hurd (12:20.526)
Absolutely. And you know, we we try to teach rules. Hey, what are your rules on this? What are your rules on that? But when the pieces move, right, there is that, you know, kids, you know, they get a little, uh-oh. He w he wasn’t where he was last week. So now, uh-oh. So having no go routes on them, especially in the beginning of the week, just gives you that comfort level, gives them that comfort level, like, I I see what this is supposed to look like. And it’s big picture, right? He knows exactly, you know, the guard knows who the center’s working to, who knows who the backside guard’s working to.

Who knows who the tight end’s working to because they could see the big picture of it. All right, hey, here’s how we’re getting everyone blocked. And this guy is being handled by something else. So I don’t have to worry about going out to that guy. I can see the box. I could see how all five or six of us are gonna block this box. And now I can just go. So you know, it doesn’t only help them, but they you know, kind of helps the whole group because they know what what each one should be doing as well.

Keith Grabowski (13:14.2)
Yeah. I I think again as I talk to coaches from all different levels, all kinds of different situations, you find you know, we think of it on the outside, looking in when you first get introduced to it, it’s a way to make my scout team go faster. But this is just a way to enhance your learning. I think it really is. It’s as much as it is, yes, it is that. it’s a learning and development tool if you utilize it that way as well.

Shane Hurd (13:42.52)
Yep. And and you know, I I when I’m talking to coaches who who are thinking about doing it, that’s what I say. Hey, you could be as simple with this as, you know, scout offense, right? And that’s because everyone’s gonna put it on the scout up, right? That that’s what everyone’s gonna do. Or you can be, you know, as complex with it and use it all summer, right? If if you’re gonna do, you know, Tuesday night workouts, you could throw one in there, you know, this week we’re gonna we’re just gonna introduce our gap schemes. It’s a Tuesday night in the summertime. You got a group of guys there, hey, put them on them and introduce your gap schemes.

And then use them as a teaching tool as you get closer to practice. And then on Mondays, once once practice starts. So, you know, a lot of guys will just pull them out once they start to scout, which is great. Right. And it is, it is a beautiful tool for giving your defense the the most reps that they’re going to be able to see. And like I said, we we talked about earlier, you know, game like reps. but there’s also a lot of other uses for it that you can that you can really steal time, right? As coaches, that’s what we’re always looking to do. Hey, where can I steal some time?

That’s another place to steal some time.

Keith Grabowski (14:44.482)
Yeah, for sure. Now I’ve I’ve heard some interesting uses for sca for special teams as well. Do you guys do you guys utilize it in special teams?

Shane Hurd (14:53.054)
We’re not there yet, but I have in the past. You know, we we’ve done a bunch of different things, laying them on the ground and having guys run through what they’re gonna do, you know, so you can get more reps, get an extra group up there. Now there’s not a lot, you know, ’cause we steal time from special teams, right? So being able to use those there is as well is is is really good. we haven’t gotten there yet, Binghamton, but other places I have, we certainly did.

Keith Grabowski (15:18.444)
I think

With or without Go Route, Shane, when you look at all the things you’ve learned about practice. And I know I think the people who learn more about efficiency when they have a tool like this, but to help coaches out there, whether you have go route or not, what are some of the key things you would focus on as a coach, especially in season here, to make your practices more efficient as the season rolls on?

Shane Hurd (15:45.218)
Yeah, I I I think have it well planned out is is, you know, do the work on the front end. Right. Do the work on the front end. Know exactly what you’re gonna do during practice. Right. So if I’m if I’m a head coach and I’m looking out during an indie period, I should really know what the offensive line is working on, what the wide receivers are working on, what the backs are doing. And it should all be relative to what we’re doing that week. Right. so you know, doing doing a drill that you’re not gonna see pop up on a Friday night.

just because it’s indie time and it’s an EDD, right? I I don’t know how much that that gets you better, right? So, you know, once you get in season, I think doing that work on the front end is the biggest way to have an efficient practice, right? And then sticking to it. Right. So hey, if I’m gonna get through, you know, if I have 30 plays scripted, I’m gonna get through 30 plays and I’m gonna be able to get through that because I’m gonna coach on the run. I’m not gonna stop every five or six plays and slow down the whole practice and whatnot.

Right. Not so much teaching off the tape, but maybe you pull that guy out for a play and assistant corrects him. Right. But you’re still going. You’re still going. And then you know, no time wasters, no time wasters during the practice, right? So transition time shouldn’t be a time waster. That should be something where we’re moving from here to there. you know, but I think the work on the front end is is is you know, much more beneficial than just going out there, no script, no plan, and just hey, you know, we’re gonna be in Indies for twenty minutes and

Know what what are we doing, right? What are we doing? Do you need 20 minutes of indie on a Tuesday? Maybe you do. You know, maybe Friday night didn’t it look so good. And there’s some things you really need to work on on indie. but then getting to a group period, getting to an inside run, getting to a seven on seven. Hey, here really are the seven plays I want to hit in that. So maybe I only need seven minutes of inside run. Here are the you know, 10 to 12 plays I really want to hit in Skelly because I’m gonna see him again in team. But these are the ones I want taught, right? So now I only need maybe 10 minutes of Skelly.

So being able to steal time just because you know what you want to do and what you want to get done on the front end.

Keith Grabowski (17:46.71)
Yeah, I think if if I were to offer one tip to coaches, and this is one I’m l living right now, is be a creative time stealer. Like there are opportunities where you have guys not working. For example, our our starting quarterback, he doesn’t play defense. when we’re going scout O or anything like that, you know, individual D, I’ll work with him, but when it’s scout, sometimes I’ll grab them and say, Hey, we’re gonna go work. And here’s this receiver who’s not on the

on defense today or running scout team. Let’s go work on some individuals. And hey, you play outside linebacker good. I need you over here for a red drill. And and you know, by the time I’ll take, you know, we don’t have a big roster, but the six to eight kids who are standing around doing nothing, I grab I mean, you know, a couple couple freshman line offensive linemen who, you know, they can’t give us a good look yet. come over here. I’ll you guys go against each other and make him feel pressure. So

You know, I’m looking at how do I make these kids better and and how do I work with the quarterback and you know, exchange before exchange turned to just from just centers and QBs. I told the coach yesterday, I said, you know what, by the end of this, I promise you, I will have the whole team out here doing something. But you know, getting the receivers over and and they don’t put their helmets on and it’s a nice easy period, but what are you working on? Instead of just catching the ball, like what are you working on on these smokes? well, I’m gonna get square on this guy and have a two way go.

Go. I want to see you do that then. Right. And so it’s the chance to coach those guys. I would always do it even at the college level with during special teams, with offensive line or with quarterbacks or whatever. There’s all kinds of creative things you can do that are better than having these guys stand around. And I think that goes to just the development. When you think about efficiency and practice, there’s a chance to always get guys better. And I think as a coach, if if you’re a guy who maybe doesn’t have an assignment a period or whatever, like grab some of those guys.

Shane Hurd (19:38.982)
Yeah, when we do our exchange, that’s the that’s the the time that we really hit footwork with the quarterbacks. Right. So now maybe they won’t have a receiver because I want to get, you more QB center reps, but at least when they catch the ball, they hey I’m these this is my feet, footwork for quick game left. Do three. Now three for quick game right. Now I’m gonna, you know, do a little five step. All right, I’m throwing left. I’m throwing right. I’m not throwing, but at least my feet, I’m creating that habit with my feet in a simple QB center exchange drill. You know, we try to steal that.

Any defensive indie because our center, you know, doesn’t play defense. And obviously our quarterback doesn’t. So that’s the time for those guys. But we’re not just going to snap the ball, right? We’re going to step, we’re going to step hard as far as a center, which everyone does. But the quarterback, that’s his time to go through all his footwork, right? Hey, I’m not getting as much depth on my my nakeds and boots as I should. That’s the time I’m going to get to work on that because it might not get hit during the body of practice, especially if it’s a defensive day, right?

But that’s the time to steal that. So every day we’re working on that footwork.

Keith Grabowski (20:39.778)
Great stuff, Shane. It’s great to catch up with you here during the season. I appreciate you taking the time and good luck the rest of the way to you.

Shane Hurd (20:46.69)
Thanks, coach. I appreciate it. I’ll see you at Turning Stone.

Shane Hurd (20:55.774)
Yeah.