North Kitsap High School football team focuses on field readiness as 2023 season nears

As misty rain fell on Strawberry Community Fields in Poulsbo last Friday morning, North Kitsap assistant football coach Dave Snyder asked players a simple question while spacing out cones for 40-yard-dash testing: “Do you guys feel fast today?”

One by one, Viking players took their turn posting times, which were generally slow across the board. Chalk it up to tired legs not fully functioning at the conclusion of a long week.

Snyder wasn’t overly concerned.

Truth be told, as North Kitsap approaches the two-week blackout period before teams around the state begin official preseason practices on Aug. 16, the overall goal for the Vikings has been bringing players up to speed with Week 1 of the 2023 season on the horizon. North Kitsap, last year's Class 2A state runner-up, opens on the road against Mount Tahoma on Sept. 1.

“Be better today than yesterday," Snyder said. "Be better tomorrow than today."

For roughly six weeks, Snyder and fellow North Kitsap assistant coach Chris Richardson have organized the team's summer training efforts, which underwent a shift in focus several years ago. No longer is training in the hottest part of the year about putting up massive pounds in the weight room or running endless conditioning drills on the field.

Don't even mention the word conditioning to Snyder, who doubles as the school's track and field coach.

“Conditioning is out of the picture," Snyder said. "It’s all speed and explosion. … whatever we are going to do, we’re going to do it explosive, intense and then rest. It’s like a football play. A football play lasts four-to-six seconds. Why am I going to run them for reps of 20-25 seconds?”

With morning and evening training workouts held four days a week, Snyder runs speed training at Strawberry Fields before sending players to Richardson, who guides weight-based circuiting training in the high school's auxiliary gym. Snyder and Richardson sync their plans to focus on burst, acceleration, agility and plyometrics.

Sessions, which last roughly 45 minutes, don't feature a lot of down time. You won't see players finishing a set of lifts, then checking their phones for five minutes.

"We're going, going, going, going going," Richardson said.

Overseeing the high school's weight room activities in the winter and spring, Richardson said the time for serious muscle-building has come and gone.

“You’ve had six months to put on weight, to get stronger, to do all those things," Richardson said. "You are not going to get a whole boatload stronger in the six weeks that we have you. Summertime focus for me is: We are just getting your body ready to go into football."

One word Richardson used regularly when talking about the objective for summer training is force: the strength/energy as an attribute of physical action or movement. How is force determined? Mass multiplied by acceleration.

Richardson and Snyder are more concerned with increasing players' ability to explode and "fire off the ball" than they are with 40-yard dash times or bench press totals. Regardless of position, the quicker the player, the more force that player exhibits on the field.

“You always hear bigger, faster, stronger," Richardson said. “We want strength and power to be applied.”

It's interesting to hear Richardson talk about senior defensive lineman EJ Vailolo possessing the ability to generate 1,100 newtons, which is the international metric unit used to determine force output.

Doesn't exactly sound "old-school" does it? But for the Vikings, there's definitely the feeling that less can equal more and that quality can trump quantity. Football players are athletes, not body-builders.

"It's great for a kid's Instagram or Twitter if they are lifting 600 pounds … (but) they are moving like a snail," Richardson said. "I'd much rather see you lifting 400 and moving quickly."

Snyder and Richardson said injury prevention is also high on the Vikings' priority list with the season approaching. In football games, players often find themselves moving and exerting themselves in weird positions. In his circuit training, Richardson has players engage in full range of motion exercises aimed at improving balance and increasing arm, hip, knee and ankle flexibility.

During one such exercise, players hold medicine balls and shift from side to side, imitating the stride a speed skater would make during a race.

“We are teaching you how to land and be powerful in the right spots," Richardson said.

Understanding that different football programs around the state prioritize different goals during summer workouts, Snyder and Richardson don't believe there's only one way to properly prepare a team to do battle on Friday nights. Yet they believe they've found a system that works and the players have bought in. The Vikings are averaging between 50-60 players per day during summer workouts, which are considering optional for attendance purposes.

“It’s our standard and the way we doing things," Snyder said. "Is it perfect? No. But they know it’s our standard.”

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Prep football: North Kitsap Vikings focus on field readiness