Question about conditioning and sprints

LukerPslim

I coach a youth football team and we condition pretty hard. (I run with them to get my workout in. its pretty awesome) Anyway, we had a scrimmage the other night and the two teams ran together at the end. The other teams coach made the teams chop feet in between sprints. I was a bit concerned by this. The intervals between sprints are for a brief recovery, as I understood. So my question is this, is making the kids pump their feet in between sprints a good thing or a bad thing? Are there any sports fitness people around that could answer this for me?