We tend to keep gi and nogi separate. For competition sparring we also try to make the first round between evenly matched opponents and then winners fight each other until last man standing.

One must ask first - what are the PURPOSE(S)/GOAL(S) of your competition class (as a coach). Then one can start to plan accordingly. Before that, the question is meaningless and trying to answer it only creates confusion because people are going to speak from different platforms without consciously realising that everyone does.

I agree. I should have included our (my) goals for the class in the description.
Overall i want to make guard retention and guard passing the focus/goal of the class. Not techniques, but using what they already know and improving on that in a controlled environment. We warm up drilling a couple of moves for 15 minutes, then shark tank rounds of 5 minutes for 30 minutes, only guard retention, no sweeps or submissions. Then I reverse the roles and to guard passing for the guys in the "tank". Every now and then we switch from guard type situations to defensive situations (back mount/sidecontrol) to include the submission game. I do this because in my experience it is such a huge part of what usually happens in a competition situation and when we just did hard rolling we lost emphasis on the individual positions, and even though peoples cardio improved, no one really got better at defending the pass/sub or passing/submitting. We finish the class off with a few long regular sparring rounds. Also we're a rather small competition team, and we have to mix all levels for everybody to get enough rounds.

@Jorgen: I SAID STOP IT

I wrote once on Facebook: What's the difference between regular class and competition class? The pain.
Partially a joke but clearly a very general yet significant difference is simply the physical exhaustion (which leads to different mindset and different micro- and macro- goals within the training session).

Of course there is a minimum skill level required for the class because it's not the environment to explain people why they they can not do arm bar while under the mount, or what a half guard is. But within people who can understand the language of the sport, I tend not to separate skill levels leaving to them the responsability of figuring out A. not to be a jerk when paired with someone significantly less skilled and B. accept that you're in for a humbling round when paired with someone significantly more skilled.

Back to what Jorgen said, one competition class is not a randomly ran battle royale, there are open mats for that. What we do is introducing the theme/direction/technique of the day, which is normally correlated to the gameplan of the nearest match somebody is preparing for. Run some drill/positional sparring about, then redirect or finetuning the work with Q/A or with my absolutely not democratic intervention (this depends on how things are going and how much corrections and next step need to be enforced) and again drill/positional sparring. After this if I/we feel that there's been enough informations for the day, it's the good old sparring time.

I have a completely different approach to the COMP/Advanced classes I teach.
-My class is tailored for purple and up with some blues. The blues that are allowed to attend require prior approval from Gilbert Olivas(my co-instructor) or I.
-We focus on specific details and theories versus specific techniques.
-We do not spar, we focus exclusively on positional drilling.

I highly enjoy our comp classes, even though I often have a certain love/hate relationship with them (because it gets pretty ruff sometimes). In fact they are the reason I even started to compete back in the day.

I think our head coach puts out way more planning into them than most. He also coaches a pro MMA team so a lot of it comes from there.

We always have it structured so that the athletes should peak at the big annual National comps, and the European Open. (Smaller comps are worked in on a personal level, because not everybody is attending them.) We are given handouts in the beginning of the season, which shows the outline of the comp program in the weekly basis, and also what amount of supplemental training is recommended on which week (what type & how much of strength training, interval running or hill sprints etc.).

All students interested in competition can enter the comp class, only requirements are that you can control the intensity of your rolling, and that you have a few techniques you basically know and wanna work on ("your" guards/sweeps/passes etc.).

People are not separated per belt level, except when it comes to do the hard comp simulation sparring or if drilling requires it (higher level student wants to work a more advanced position). We are given a lot of time to drill and hone our "own stuff", with instruction available, rather than a certain set of techniques.

Typically there is a S&C circuit training type of warmup in the beginning, intensity of which is defined by the program and how far we are from the competition.

In the "standard practice period" the comp classes are actually less physically demanding than the normal classes (less normal sparring, more lighter and longer "technical rolls" ), so there is a better chance of working in a good strength training routine without getting too tired. When a competition gets closer, the class and the sparring intensifies (and there should be less emphasis on training strength ofc).

A lot of the class is positional sparring, with often a certain simple concept or technique worked in (such as a crucial point in finishing a pass, or taking the back a certain way when the opponent turns before attacking your own submission etc.). Or we work on situations that were problematic to many in a previous comp.

In a certain point of the cycle, the comp sparring part gets really hard. The point of course is to emulate a competition situation, which is way more intense than regular class sparring. During this time (certain number of weeks out) we typically shark tank once a week so that one student is in the middle & the other two attack him/her back-to-back fresh for a set amount of minutes (for example 3+3+3+3). (There is some prior build up for this in the program so people can handle it.) For these it makes sense to group people of similar skill level. Then there are also rounds where the goal is to score 3 points first (then a restart), or so that for a shorter round, the idea is to start in a situation where the other one is 2 points behind and has to make a comeback and the other is just trying to stall etc.

Comp approaches, the sparring rounds get shorter (although still intense) and the rest times longer. Big focus is also to work out a personal comp warm-up routine, so you're good to go HARD on the very first match. So we practice that often.

Basically if you just attend these classes regularly leading up to a comp, you don't have to worry about being in shape for the event. And usually the comp itself can feel easy after completing the season's cycles in the comp class. So convenient. :D But it's also nice to get back to rolling just for fun afterwards.

Comp class is about fixing your own stuff. I think one of my instructors said it the best that if you do not know what you need to be working on then you are not ready for comp class. I like hour of drilling and 10 rounds of 8min sparring the best. Currently I drill before or after class about 30 min and do sparring 10-15x8min 2min breaks or 15x6 and 1 min break. I like this version a lot as well.

These are not rookie numbers :D

I think you pretty much described the amount of sparring I do in _a week_...

At our academy we have two classes a week that, while not explicitly 'competition' classes, are tailored toward the people who like to compete more. Tuesday we do a little flow rolling to warm up, then 7 minute rounds for the balance of the hour. On Thursday we spend about 30 minutes drilling and 30 minutes doing positional/situational rolling. Seems to be working well so far, but I like the suggestions/comments here.

EDIT - We separate by week. One week is gi, the following week is no gi. Try to keep it balanced, but we will skew it depending on competition schedules.