Practice changes

There's a difference practice philosophy this year.

The Oregon State football team plans to approach practice differently this season.

There won’t be any two-huddle, speed practicing anymore. Last year the Beavers wanted to run as many plays as possible when the offense went against the defense.

Coach Mike Riley plans to slow it down and pay attention to details this year.

“I’m looking forward to teaching, and we need to get it right,” Riley said. “We are going to take our time with installation and teaching. You won’t see a lot of interaction with the offense and defense for the first few days.”

This move should have been done last year when everyone was so new. They needed to learn how to do it right instead of going fast.

Other practice changes include the 11 a.m. start time that I already address and taking Sunday off and practicing Monday during the season.

The Beavers usually met on Sunday to go over film and workout, but not really practice. Then they took Monday off and had three days of practice to get ready for the next game.

Most other teams take Sunday off and practice Monday-Thursday. So OSU was not practicing as much as other teams. However, the Beavers usually finished strong.

The idea was that the one less practice a week kept them fresh at the end, while others were worn out. Well, that hasn’t worked the last two years so a change was needed.

“I’ve been toying with that and talking to people about that for a while,” Riley said. “There are problems with it. I love seeing guys on Sunday, but we can balance things out better. Instead of practice for two hours we’ll do it for but an hour-and-a-half for four days.”