Body Mechanics and Youth Football

Football fundamentals such as blocking and tackling are key elements towards effective football play. Specific drills that emphasize fundamentals should be a big part of your practice plan and done daily in order to develope your youth football players. But more than just drills, you as a youth football coach, should take some time to really explain the funadamental as well as the key body mechanics that must be performed correctly that will enhance the specific fundamental. Lets face it great hitters have excellent body mechanics which enables them to effectively perform with power and speed. One of the things a youth football coach can do is really take the time at the beginning of the season and explain to your players the importance of sound body mechanics in order to have strong fundamentals in football. Such things would include head position prior to impact as well as having the body in a set position with knees bent and arms back so that when contact is made the body is set up in order to be able to explode up and through the opponent. When teaching tackling drills the point of contact of your player or point of impact should be explained as part of the body mechanics they need to know to be strong physical players. Sometimes you'll notice players will pursue hard to the ball carrier and then let up just before impact. This would be a good example of a player not fully understanding perhaps his own bodies point of impact on his opponent which is they are not as physical as they should be. If proper body mechanices were emphasized in fundamental drills perhaps it would have made a huge difference. Body mechanics teaches youth football players why they do what they do and in the end will give them super confidence. A lot of times the youth football coach gets so wrapped up in their drills they lose sight of the teaching side of the game specifically the communication to your football players the importance of good body mechanics. Cheers!

Football Strategies:Defending the Wishbone Offence

For the longest time I thought the wishbone offence was basically a power game that featured a trio of big power backs that would go head to head with your defence with the goal of over powering you at the point of attack grinding out hard yards wearing you down and patiently moving the football along down after down beating your defence up along the way.

I thought it was grass roots football at its best, a simple but effective method of playing football.

I always wondered why teams would choose this type of football offence with all the offences to choose from when they know that the defence will simply load up the box to defend the extra back.I always just viewed it as a power verus power match-up.

Then I realized that this philosophy on defending the wishbone is exactly why they run this scheme. They know that you will load up the box, and attack gaps. Its exactly what they want you to do. They use this predictabilty to their advantage. While the defence is becoming so wrapped up in stuffing the run, being aggressive, and looking for the big hit the wishbone is methodically luring you in, setting you up with misdirection and play-action, as well as bootlegs and reverses.

This is when the wishbone is most effective! They want you to load up the box and basically get your defence being over aggressive and ruuning around.

The key is to maintain defensive assignments.Contain guys must force and filter the ball effectively back inside. Middle linebackers must be disciplined in their assignment, key on their near back and play tough, and not being sucked in on play-action. You can bring up your strong safety in the box to account for the extra back and my most success was to man up on all of the recievers and coach them up not to veer out of this man coverage no matter what in order to take away the play-action pass. Again, contain is important! Contain players are coached up not to get caught up on the misdirection of the wishbone and be ready for a bootleg or reverse. All in all maintain defensive assignments and make them grind out the yards and pay the price while doing so!

Cheers!