Youth Football Blocking Tips

Adjust your splits for Run Blocking:
Once you have established your blocking scheme for your youth football team and your offensive linemen are confident in their assignments perhaps it time that you tweak your run splits a little bit to try and gain some slight advantages. One thing that you can do as a youth football coach initially is get your offensive linemen to slightly increase their running splits on the hole that you plan on running the football through. You'd be surprised what an extra couple of inches does in regards to a run split, it opens up that running lane just a little bit more for your running back to run through.

But be careful as there are some pretty sharp middle linebackers around that will pick up on your run splits and know right away where the football is being run. Just be crafty in your approach and like anything else don't go to the well with it all the time, otherwise those middle linebackers will blitz the hole and kill your play. Probably at the younger youth football levels they won't pick up on a slight increase in your split on a running play. If they don't adjust, then run it that way until they catch on, then back-off a few series and try it again. Coaching in football sometimes requires that you become a little crafty at times, this football tip is just one example.

Cheers!

Youth Football Blocking Rules

Once you have established your basic football blocking rules as you introduce your football system you can tweak and adjust the rules for certain plays and formations. For example, with a fullback orientated offence you may want to double team the defensive linemen at the point of attack and have your fullback go down to the second level and get the middle linebacker. Sometimes this adjustment in football blocking rules would be necessary in order to block a solid defensive lineman that has created havoc inside the box and cannot be blocked using your basic football blocking rules with one offensive lineman. Adjustments are a big part of football especially on the offensive line where changing fronts and stunts can create a lot of problems for your running game.

Between series you would discuss with your offensive linemen the defensive front and who is able to handle their block by themselves so that you can double team that pesky defensive linemen and have the fullback go down on the middle linebacker.

Another strategy in youth football is if you do not have a fullback in the backfield would be adjust to what we refer to as a "double team and chip" block. That is to have two of your offensive linemen double team a defensive linemen at the point of attack, and once you get this guy moving downhill that one of the offensive linemen would "chip off" the block and go down to the second level and get the middle linebacker. This is commonly done in the zone blocking scheme. The double team would get that linemen moving out of the box and then once momentum is established by the double team, one slips off to get a block on the linebacker.

The most important thing for you to do as a youth football coach of these offensive line adjustments is that you would have already practiced these aspects as part of your football practice plan. The message would be to your offensive linemen that if the basic football blocking rules are not working that these are the type of adjustments could be made. Again, it's important that you already would have practiced these adjustments in practice.

Cheers!

High School Football Coach: Football Team Depth Chart

Manage your Football Depth Chart Effectively


As a football coach I am consistently evaluating and tinkering with my depth chart. A lot of times I'll shuffle through it, add names, change names, and drop names. Move names from a defensive football position to an offensive one and visa-versa.
I find that consistently managing your depth chart keeps you organized an up to date in your player development.
Like all good football systems that you implement, your depth chart reflects your player's strengths and where exactly they fit in the scheme of things. A football coach by maintaining a depth chart will be on top of his player's progress and keep the best possible line up on the field. It's a good way to track player progress over the course of the season and identifies players that have improved or have gotten better than one that's in a starting position.

So how does it work?

Well, at the start of a season during training camp I'll set up my first depth chart. I'll list on it all football positions that are on the football team including specialty positions, and for each position I'll assign a name or names to that football position of the player who at that time I feel is the best player for that spot. After each practice, I'll spend 15 minutes evaluating my depth chart, and move the players up and down the depth chart based on their performance and improvement. I refer to it regularly and have it with me all the time.

I find it is valuable when injuries occur in the game and you need a player substitution right away, pull out the depth chart and scan down and find the player who's the next to go in at that position. It saves time.
I also enjoy discussing the depth chart with the assistant football coaches on a player's progress and development.

A football depth chart analysis will reward a player's hard work and progress while at the same time challenge your youth football players to work hard to keep their positions and not fall down the depth chart.


Cheers!

Coaching in Football: Youth Football Coaching

There are many things to consider when coaching in football. First of all, the most important thing is that you have to be passionate about coaching in football. Do it because you love it, not because you feel obligated to become involved for whatever reason, but for your true love of the game of football.

Always be enthusiastic and positive when coaching in football and you'll find it becomes contagious with the people and players that are around you. Understand that there is as much work outside of the game of football as there is in it. Administrative paperwork, registrations, equipment, team and football league meetings are time consuming for a volunteer and can be costly at times.

You almost have to look at your youth coaching assignment as being a hobby. Like all hobbies that we enjoy, they do in the end cost money, but all in all the enjoyment that we get out of it coaching in football is worth the cost associated with it.

In some youth football coaching assignments, one can be reimbursed for their costs, however, for the most part; a volunteer youth coach receives little or no compensation. Understand that you will be dealing with a lot more than your players. There will be issues at times, questions to answer, happy and unhappy parents, fans, grandparents, etc. Accept the fact that the role of the football coach and coaching in football will have its ups and downs and you will never make everybody happy.

For the most part if you can keep the majority happy most of the time you're doing a good job!


Cheers

Football Coach: High School Football Training Camp

A football training camp can be a complicated process. Football player evaluations can be tough at times and stressful for both the parents, players, and football coaches involved. But, it is part of the process needed in order to choose and shape your team. As a youth football coach you have to be prepared and organized.
Meet with your football coaching staff and manager prior to the first practice. Assign one or more the job of running the practice sessions. During the football training camp, plan to either sit up in the stands or on the bleachers with your pen and clip-board. Pay attention closely to the each football player's skill level by evaluating them when they do drills emphasizing fundamentals.

Evaluate how hard they work in drills. Pick out the ones that seem to struggle in the different individual skill drills that you have scheduled and make a note of them, as well as the ones that do the drills with ease. Watch them closely during team drills when they have to work in tandem with other players. How do they respond? Does it appear that they could play within a system or do they struggle? As well, note their effort in drills where they are pressured and have to battle, do they battle hard, or do they shy away, this will measure their character.

 Do they take plays off?

Finally, after practice, meet with your football coaching staff once again and discuss each player individually. Some will stand out immediately while others will have you wondering what they can do. Talk about their strengths and their weaknesses and what they would bring to the football team. In the following practices pick the tempo up and evaluate them once again. You should soon start to see the separation begin and you will start to get a pretty good idea of how the team will shape up.

Keep a log of your players during this process. This will help you in the end with your selections. Also, if you are challenged by a player or parent on your selections you can refer to your log on the player in question.

Cheers!

Youth Sports- Coaching a Youth Football Defensive Line

Did you ever imagine that you would be discussing defensive line strategies? Most youth football coaches just line up their biggest, slowest defensive linemen in the box and tell them to plug and penetrate into the backfield. But did you ever consider taking that defensive line a little further?


Yea, sure you want to get your defensive line to get up field but how many times have you seen these big guys miss the running back or worse run right by him oblivious to where the football is at. As well, how many of your defensive tackles have caught the quarterback from behind on a roll-out or have been fooled on a screen play?

Give your defensive line assignments and responsibilities!

What if you taught your defensive linemen to read their football blocks and only penetrate to the heels of the offensive linemen and let the ball come to them? By reading the offensive line based on how they are being blocked a linemen can get in a better position to make a play! By penetrating only to the heels of the offensive line a defensive linemen will stay in the play, be harder to trap and not over pursue the ball.

Teach your defensive linemen to keep their heads in the game, know the situation, down and distance and react accordingly. If your contain guys do their job, they will filter the running game back inside to your defensive tackles who await patiently and are responsible to stop the oppositions running game from inside the box from offensive tackle to offensive tackle.

And move that line around. In other words the worst thing you can do is keep them in the same look all during the football game. Give them gap assignments and coach them to control their gaps. Either one or two gap assignments based on their alignment. If your front calls for them to line up in the gap then coach them to shoot the gaps as hard as possible and get double teamed all the while trying to penetrate into the heels of the offensive line. If your front calls for them to line up directly over an offensive linemen, have them jam the offensive linemen on the snap using a two point punch technique, and play two gap responsibility while making a read where the ball is going. If the ball is coming into one of your two gap assignments either to the left or right of the offensive linemen your engaged with then shed the linemen and get your head and body into that gap.

Cheers!

Football Practice Plan

Your first football practice is a few days away, you're excited about getting out there and getting things going, working with the youth in the hour plus time allotted. Wait a minute... an hour... how do you fill the time in? Well, let's get started. You need to be organized and you need to have a football practice plan. You cannot do it off the top off your head. You need to have a football practice plan that accounts for every minute of your planned practice.

A good football practice plan will cover all aspects of your specific sport: warm-up, conditioning, fundamentals, skills, team play and systems, as well as special teams. Account for at least a minimum of 10-15 minutes per category. Too much in one area and the players will lose interest and you will lose out in the other areas that you want to cover. By having a football practice plan and following it, you will have good flow to your practice, maintain player concentration, and get the most out of your practice by covering all aspects.

A poor football practice plan and you will have down time which invites fooling around and lack of focus especially at the youth level.

Follow your plan!

If you are working on a specific fundamental or system and things are not working out after your allotted time frame, move on to the next scheduled assignment, and after practice make a note of how each session went and what you need to continue to work on in practice. Keep practice logs recording your thoughts, ideas, and player evaluation and development. Refer to the log prior to planning the following football practice so you know what you need to schedule. It's important that you work on fundamentals of some sort for each and very practice, do not omit this in order to work on something else. Solid fundamentals such as tackling and blocking are very important. You need to do fundamentals well in order to be good in your systems.

Remember you play like you practice!

Cheers!

Football Tackling Drills:Head Position in Tackling

As a youth football coach it's very important that when we are teaching tackling that we make sure that we emphasize that the players never use their head to butt, ram, spear, or make contact with an opponent. In drills covering tackling, all football coaches need to make this a priority.

I read an interesting article the other day whereby a neuro-surgeon with a football back round stated that the best way to teach our youth football players to tackle would be with out helmets. That way they would develop a good tackling technique that would protect and not involve the head.

Now I wouldn't recommend this but I do certainly understand his point.

With the pencil necks that we coach at the youth level the head never should be part of the equation. The point of contact when making a tackle should be the chest with the head back. If you examine any youth shoulder pad the breast plate is well protected and designed to sustain contact. Once contact is made the player should be taught to drive up and through his opponent with his arms, latch, keep his feet moving, and take his opponent to the ground.

Tackling drills should cover straight on tackling and angle tackling with the coach emphasizing point of contact and proper head position. Players should be taught to never, ever drop their heads, and with their head back at all times, watch and follow the hit in all the way. One of the things I have incorporated in tackling drills is that in the early sessions of teaching tackling is to tackle with "thud" contact, head back, wrap up, and do not leave your feet. Now "thud" contact is controlled half speed contact whereby we want the contact to be initiated but, the emphasis is on good tackling technique with head back, and proper form and technique. We stick with controlled "thud" contact until we are comfortable that all players have good tackling fundamentals and then we will pick up the speed a little more in the contact drills.

And you know what happens?

Once the speed is picked up a little, a lot of young tacklers will drop their heads on contact. At this point as a coach you have to step in, review technique once again, and send them back to "thud" school for more training. A couple of trips through "thud school" will get them thinking. What's most important is that they never tackle at a faster speed until they pass "thud school". Then it's controlled progression in all tackling drills until they have it right.



Cheers!

Youth Football: Conditioning

A proper conditioning routine during football practice is as important as any other elements that you have planned in your football practice. A football team that is well conditioned and well coached is a tough one to play against. Its important that as a youth football coach we balance conditioning as part of your practice routine.

Your practice plan should reflect conditioning drills as a team as well as incorporate conditioning right in your individual groups. A lot of teams now run team conditioning drills at the beginning of practice immediately after warm-up. The idea being that you tire your team out at the beginning of practice and then continue to work them through the practice at a fast pace similar to game conditions. That way they are used to playing hard and making good decisions even while fatigued. Practicing at a high pace similar to a game gives them mental toughness which is required in the latter part of close games and could spell the difference between a win or a loss.

Make sure that you do schedule your water and rest breaks efficiently during practice so that they do rest and hydrate properly but at the next element of your practice make sure they work hard at a high tempo without sacraficing proper form and technique. Probably at the beginning of the season your practice tempo won't be just there yet as players struggle somewhat fundamentally but as the practices pile up, emphasize to your coaches and players to practice hard and at a high tempo.

Youth Football Shuffle the Deck

As your youth football team comes together with systems and line-up in place don't be afraid to shuffle the deck a bit. In other words, try a few different looks and combinations with players to see how they respond outside of their normal comfort zone. Try playing your big offensive end on the defensive end side or move one of your defensive players on the offensive side of the ball, give him some carries and see how he does.

You may find a diamond in the rough!

The only way you'll know is just to try it out. This is your responsibility to get the utmost out of your team. Its like car racing, you know what a guy can do on the quarter mile but as a coach you're curious to see what he can do on the oval.

At least you will know.

Try this at times perhaps when you have a good lead on your opponent or when you are behind at times by a large margin and just want to get something going.

It could spark your team or it could make you better. As a football coach you'd be selling yourself short if you didn't take the opportunity to try. Probably one of your team goals is to improve every day and this might be a way to compliment that goal. But, it could also blow up in your face, keep in mind though nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Some of the best moves have come out of these shuffles. You'll get comments like" How did you ever know? or "We never imagined they were capable" but also as well "What were you thinking? Ha-Ha.



Cheers

Youth Football Practice Plan

It seems to be a very long time between your last youth football game played and the upcoming season opener. Spring rolls in and as usual football fever heats up. I just received notice in regards to an upcoming youth football camp that is slated for the end of April. During the call my competitive juices start to flow and my excitement level rises.

It's going to be fun to get out on the field and teach youth football!

But wait a minute, what am I going to do with my group? Ah, worry not my friend for I have my trusty practice plans at hand and I will be ready to go, mange my time effectively, and get everything in that I want to get in and cover.

It's the only way to do it!

It's very difficult to show up at a football camp not be prepared and it's not fair to the players or the parents who have invested money into the camp. Besides it makes practise much simpler if I have my practice plan all mapped out.

Cheers!

Youth Football Groom Your Role Players

Within your system you will have players that are naturally stronger or more talented than the others. They seem to play the game with ease, have good athletic ability, and contribute without missing a beat. The game is easy for them to play. This group would be identified as your core players and you will rely on them to carry a lot of the load during the football game. Most teams have their core players and the more core players you have the more depth you have on your bench. Usually the larger programs have more core players as a result of the higher numbers.

Does this mean that the smaller programs will not be able to compete?

Not at all! Every team will have their core group. What's important for the smaller programs with less depth is to surround your core players with solid role players and give them assignments that they must do within the system. For example, the less offensively talented players will be assigned a defensive role whereby each and every time they are engaged in play their role is to play tough defensively, be physical and pressure the opposing team into creating turn-overs and make mistakes that could possibly generate a score. They would have a primarily defensive role and when they get their time on the field, they know their role which is to be defensive first, play tough and not give up any points. This would be just as important to the team as scoring and if they fulfill their assignment each and every time, they will limit the scoring of the opposing team's core players.

These role players are important to have on any team and usually play against the top core players. For the most part if your role players are stronger than the opposing teams, than chances are you will have a good day. My experience with the role players is that once you explain to them their specific assignment within the system that they thrive within it, and become confident and key contributors. Remember, in the tightest of games it's usually the role players that determine the outcome.



Cheers

Youth Football Middle Linebackers

In youth football they're probably your most aggressive and best tacklers on the team that go side-line to side-line making tackles. Their attack is relentless and they are a big part of your defence, and no doubt, during the regular season they rack up the tackling stats.
But there's a problem developing among the many tackles that your youth football player is making. A problem that is lurking and waiting to be exposed, by the right offensive co-ordinator. You probably won't notice it until play-offs when the teams you face are better.

Now what's that lurking problem? It's called misdirection!

I have seen it a hundred times. Linebackers biting and bailing on plays, only to be taken advantage of by misdirection. All of a sudden your all-star linebacker is invisible and your in trouble in a hurray.

At the youth football level the misdirection would probably be in the form of a sweep reverse play or quarterback bootleg.

As you try to settle your linebacker down another problem usually follows. You soon discover that with your middle linebacker staying home that you have contain problems. Probably never seen much of it all year as your middle linebacker went side-line to side-line, but now it's there and at the worst time, and it's not an easy fix. Practice time is when you fix it, but it's a play-off game and you might not be practicing on Monday.

All in all, your linebackers need to be familiar with the terms misdirection and contain. They need to understand their assignments from within these terms and how things can go wrong if these two areas are ignored. It starts in your first linebacker group practice and is reinforced every work-out through out the season. They have to do respect it and most of all, they have to think it! If they have a contain responsibility then that's what their first and foremost responsibility is, making the tackle is secondary. If they are playing in the middle, then they are taught to stay at home on plays away from their side and to think of misdirection back their way.

Cheers!

Static Versus Dynamic Stretching in Youth Football

Back in the day when you did your warm-up and stretching routine prior to practice your stretching consisted of a stationary routine where you stretched your major muscle groups by leaning, bending, and twisting your body, in a slow controlled  movement to slowly stretch and warm-up each of your major muscle groups. Probably, the team lined up in rows and in your individual spot you did your warm-up. Probably, the team would count out aloud for each individual stretch.

Sound familiar? This type of stretching would be referred to as static stretching and is an old school way of warming up. Simple but effective!

During my youth football coaching days I grew to hate this routine. I found that at the youth football level it was time consuming, became social time, had no flow, and was overall just plain boring. With practice time at a premium I decided to find a way to do change this warm-up. I wanted something that was going to be just as effective, but have more flow, and more importantly, take up the same amount of time consistently each practice.

So curiosity got to me and I decided to find a better way. Of course I started with researching the internet and after endless searching I finally stumbled across dynamic stretching. Now dynamic stretching is a series of agilities done at a controlled pace that is designed to stretch all of your major muscle groups, get the blood flowing through the body, has good flow, limits the fooling around and social time,and accomplishes the same thing as static stretching.

Dynamic stretching is basically agility drills done in a controlled fashion that targets specific muscles. Some of these agilties would be high knees, push-offs, lateral shuffles, carioca, and back-peddles. Each agility would require the football player to conduct each agility for about 15-20 yards at least twice and then do the next agility. When the players are done their dynamic stretching I usually lead them into their conditioning by doing light sprints and slowly ease them into full sprints. I found it to be a much more effective and efficient way to warm-up the team.

Cheers!

Football Tackling Tips: Head Position

As a youth football coach it's very important that when we are teaching tackling that we make sure that we emphasize that the players never use their head to butt, ram, spear, or make contact with an opponent. In drills covering tackling, all football coaches need to make this a priority.

I read an interesting article the other day whereby a neuro-surgeon with a football back round stated that the best way to teach our youth football players to tackle would be with out helmets. That way they would develop a good tackling technique that would protect and not involve the head.

Now I wouldn't recommend this but I do certainly understand his point.

With the pencil necks that we coach at the youth level the head never should be part of the equation. The point of contact when making a tackle should be the chest with the head back. If you examine any youth shoulder pad the breast plate is well protected and designed to sustain contact. Once contact is made the player should be taught to drive up and through his opponent with his arms, latch, keep his feet moving, and take his opponent to the ground.

Tackling drills should cover straight on tackling and angle tackling with the coach emphasizing point of contact and proper head position. Players should be taught to never, ever drop their heads, and with their head back at all times, watch and follow the hit in all the way. One of the things I have incorporated in tackling drills is that in the early sessions of teaching tackling is to tackle with "thud" contact, head back, wrap up, and do not leave your feet. Now "thud" contact is controlled half speed contact whereby we want the contact to be initiated but, the emphasis is on good tackling technique with head back, and proper form and technique. We stick with controlled "thud" contact until we are comfortable that all players have good tackling fundamentals and then we will pick up the speed a little more in the contact drills.

And you know what happens?

Once the speed is picked up a little, a lot of young tacklers will drop their heads on contact. At this point as a coach you have to step in, review technique once again, and send them back to "thud" school for more training. A couple of trips through "thud school" will get them thinking. What's most important is that they never tackle at a faster speed until they pass "thud school". Then it's controlled progression in all tackling drills until they have it right.

Cheers!

Practice Football Fundamentals

As a youth football coach its important that in every practice that you focus in your group work specific fundamentals. More importantly this group work should include drills that cover what we refer to as core fundamentals such footwork, tackling, blocking, and block shedding drills.

Plan your practices so that each week you cover all of these core fundamentals. Try and keep good flow to your group so that players don't get distracted or fool around. Don't spend more than 15 minutes per fundamental as youth football players will become bored with it easily. Make sure that they do each fundamental properly. The best approach is to have two coaches work the group, one runs the drills while the other points out mistakes and makes adjustments.

With so much to cover in practice each week to get ready to play, do not veer away from practicing core fundamentals. They are the center stone of good football. If they are good fundamentally it will reflect in your football systems, they will have confidence, and it will show in their performance.

A good block or tackle can spell the difference in any games.

Cheers!

Flag Football vs Tackle Football for Youth

On some football forums I've read a lot lately about some parents that struggle with the idea of placing their 8-10 year olds into contact football with the biggest deterrent being, the level of commitment needed as far as practice time is concerned. If you compare practice time between the two there is a noticeable difference as in flag football you practice twice a week as opposed to contact football where you practice 5 times a week and play once.

I think that all in all at this age you can't really go wrong in which ever way you decide to go with your youth player. As long as they participate in football that is the main goal at this point. As they grow older they'll basically inform you of what they would like to try and do athletically. Participation is the key for this age group.

The reason the extra practise is longer in contact football is that fundamentally you need to practice more skills such as blocking and tackling ,for example. Your youth football player needs to practice these core fundamentals so that they can safely play the game. They learn how to hit and how to take a hit, head position, neck position and so on. A good youth football coach will have good drills that emphasize all of these factors and never would compromise the safety of a youth football player. These contact drills would be a slow progression until the coach is confident that the player can tackle safely.

The best thing to do if you're considering tackle football for your kid is to go and watch a youth football practice and observe the drills that are done for tackling. The drills should be a slow progression and are control drills not done at full speed. Players should be of equal size and ability and the emphasis by the football coach should be on technique and not speed at this point.


Cheers!

Football Field Goals and Convert's

Probably one of the most un-practiced parts of the football game that we neglect as football coaches is the kicking game. As we prepare to play an opponent and prepare our football systems we tend to put the kicking game on the back burner until the last practice, line them up, kick a half a dozen or more field goals and point afters and then send the players home.

Then, with the game on the line and we need the extra point to tie or a field goal to win we send our kicking team out there, cross our fingers, and hope that they mange to convert a kick with little practice time.

Arghh!

In a lot of youth football leagues across the country they now reward 2 points for a convert and 4 points for a field goal in order to create more emphasis on the kicking game. With that many points now available to youth football coaches, your beginning to see more practice time resulting in more kick attempts during the game. Youth football players are being taught at an early age the importance of a field goal as well as a point after in a football game.

The end result is that we develop solid kicking fundamentals at the youth football level early and this carries on to the higher levels. We all know that in a close football game that a good kicker can decide the outcome. Just make sure that you practice it as part of your football systems and be confident to run it during the football game.

Perhaps investing this practice time into your kicking game will pay off and you will win that big game!

Cheers!