• Practices are important because a team plays like it practices.Football official standing next to football image by Pezography from Fotolia.com
  
  Football is like any other sport: It takes practice to improve. Football incorporates two important aspects of the game that lead to success: player development and team development. Practices should demonstrate a high level of individual conditioning and training, as well as a large amount of team chemistry building on and off the field.
  
  

Train Like a Pro to Become a Pro

• Practices need to be taken seriously. Play on the field during practice is a mirror image of how an individual and team will play during a game. Every team and every player should participate with 100 percent effort at practice to improve in all aspects of the game--agility, speed, chemistry, endurance, reaction time, passing, catching, blocking and tackling. A team plays like it practices.
  
  

Watch Inspirational Movies

• Bonding is invaluable when it comes to building a successful team. Choose a day to have a less intense practice and have the team watch an inspirational movie, like "Remember the Titans," "The Replacements" or "The Blind Side." There are dozens of great football movies to choose from, and watching emotional sports films pumps the team up for a big game.
  
  

Practice All Aspects of the Game

• Practice cannot focus on just one thing. It needs to be multifaceted so that every player and every position receives a workout. The team should work on conditioning to improve stamina and strength, defensive and offensive fundamentals, positioning, scrimmages, punting, returns, kickoffs and field goals. The team should also participate in weight training together as a form of team bonding.
  
  

Practice Mental Prepartion

• Mental preparation is important to practice before game time. Individuals and teams as a whole have issues to work out. Family, peers, school, jobs, media, league officials, other teams and romantic relationships all affect how a team or player operates on the field. Practice should be used to work on how to shut out the outside world and concentrate on the game and on the field.
  
  

Design a Realistic Schedule

• Developing a routine is important because less is time wasted during practice. Decide when the team will work with weights, work on conditioning, watch game videos, run drills, work on defense and offense and run scrimmages. Plan the entire week of practices and visualize how everything will play out over the week. Set goals for the team, but make them realistic and achievable.