Playing Field:Set 4 cones in football field configuration at 30 yards in length and 30 yards wide.

Team: Divide team into equal teams of eight.

Rules:
Offense starts on own five yard line
Offense has 35 seconds to put the football in play.
Delay of game is 3 yard penalty, holding 5 yards and clipping 10 yards.
Team has four plays to score.
On the fourth play they may declare punt and other team starts on own five yard line.

Before long your football players rotate positions on their own.

Everybody is pass eligible.  You may discover you have a hidden gem!

Technorati Tags: youth football drills, football drill, football

One day I brought my stop watch to football practice, and all of a sudden everyone of them wanted to run.  It became a contest, and athletes like to compete.  I began timing how long it took them to fire off the football, hit the hole etc.. Then they wanted to get quicker.

By introducing the stop watch to our football drills  it changed the way they looked at running.  It became fun to them; they became quicker than our opponents, and we won our league.

Here’s a team concept that has also worked for me to better the “no I” in team motto.   At the beginning of the season when we start our laps around the field you always get the player who can’t get back quick enough.

After everyone returns I tell them all their times. The catch is–everyone’s time is the same as the last runner.  Now we all learn to run as a team and believe it or not the times get better after every lap.

Try it, you’ll like it. Simple yet effective!

Technorati Tags: football coach, football practice, football, football drills

Here’s an example:
Have four “teams” of five football players each.
The first player for each team starts on the goal line.
The next player from each team starts on the 20,
The next player on the 40,
The next player on the opposite 40 and
The last player on the opposite 20.

On the signal, the first player runs a 20 yard sprint going backwards.  The next player runs a 20 yard sprint doing a karaoke, the next player runs a 20 yard sprint doing high knees, the next player runs a 20 yard sprint doing butt kicks and the last player runs a straight 20 yard sprint.

The kids love cheering on their team and don’t even notice that they are doing conditioning football drills.  You can have them run the relay as many times as you like.

Technorati Tags: coaching youth football, football practice, football, football drills

It’s real simple:

• Two lines of players (preferably just your kick off team) line up at normal on-side kick width behind cones (where the football would cross the 10 yard point), at their normal kick off depth, with 3-4 yards of space between them.
• The kicker kicks onsides and the two players go full speed and try to recover the ball.  The player that does not recover the ball is “out” and the players are eliminated until we determine the “King of the Hill”.  I often do a preliminary round and then we begin the elimination rounds.

This drill is great for teaching effort and learning how the ball may typically bounce in addition to the kicker getting many reps.  Since the players are young and to keep it fun, the King may get a Gatorade at the next water break or whatever; young players will find that extra gear for stuff like that!

Technorati Tags: youth football, football drill, football

At the last practice of the season, take half an hour and set up some football drills that you call “Beat Coach ….”  One is a kickoff drill.  The football coach kicks first.  Any kid that kicked farther than the coach “won” the drill.

Next, throw a series of three footballs through a hula hoop from ten yards out.  Have the kids try to throw more footballs through the hoop than the coach did.

Kept doing the drills until all of the kids had “beaten” the coach at a drill.

I had already arranged to have pizza delivered to the field at the end of football practice.  Each kid got to have some pizza and bragging rights for having beaten me at a drill.

When we had our end of season banquet, a number of kids said it was their favorite drill of the season!

Technorati Tags: youth football coaching, football practice, football drills, football coach, football

In order to teach them how many times a flag can be missed and the importance of keep running until you hear the whistle, I line my football players up evenly in two lines about 5 yards apart.
Keep about 3 yards between the two lines–just enough room so the runner can run down the middle.
The rule is the defense is not allowed to take their left or right foot off the line so they can only reach out with one hand to pull the flag off the runner.  So many times kids run through the entire football team with both flags still on.

It also teaches my players why they need to use the proper flag pulling technique when pulling flags and to keep running until you hear a whistle.

Technorati Tags: flag football, flag football drills, football

The problem is, these kids are very young and are constantly changing.  I’ve found it to be very beneficial to keep a note pad with me and keep track of things that surprise me about our players during our football drills.  For instance, we had a young man who had been slotted to play o-line. He was decent at the position, but not spectacular.  As such, his playing time was diminished.  One day in our general tackling drills I noticed that this young man was really tearing it up.  His technique was perfect and he had become much more aggressive since the beginning of the year when he was very tentative.  We moved him to d tackle and he lit it up the rest of the year.

There were numerous other examples of the same situation.  The boy you have one week may be a completely different person 2 weeks later.  I think a coach has to keep an open mind about where kids fit the best and must be willing to alter his plan to suit his players.

Technorati Tags: coaching youth football, football coach, football, football drills

About once a week at the end of football practice we split up into teams with about 10 – 12 players on a team.  We play on a 40 yard field and have only three downs to score.

We play playground style – all pass with laterals and the football coaches being all time quarterbacks and no rushing the QB.  Touchdowns are worth 6 points and interceptions and fumble recoveries are worth 2 points.

With the coaches being the QB we can dictate who gets the passes and we usually try to get it to lineman or players who normally would not get the ball in practice or a game.  Everyone gets a kick out it and it’s a fun and competitive way to end practice.

What we do to end the school year is scrimmage our team against the programs 6 and 7 year olds.  Sounds crazy, right?  Well the catch is that we keep the older kids on their knees!

We only allow our 8th graders to participate in the scrimmage (it’s something that will be sure to have the 7th graders return next year).  We usually get a pretty big crowd come watch – the younger kids absolutely love it!

I must say, we’ve been doing this for the  past 5  years, and my team hasn’t even come close to winning!

Technorati Tags: youth football, fun football drills, football drills, football practice, football coach

What I did was line them all up on the offensive line and they were all told to stay in and block.  I had a center, a QB, and a running back behind him.

The assistant football coach and I were the defense.  They hiked the football and the kids did a great job at keeping the assistant coach and me from the running back.

They learned to block and had fun stopping us,  (a bigger defense than they would ever see in the game). Worked like a charm.

Technorati Tags: youth flag football, football coach, football

The tornado goes like this :

• The team lines up side by side, facing the opposing end zone.
• A football coach stands behind them, and throws the football to a desired location, long, short, it doesn’t matter both are good.
• The players then run to the ball and jump on it like it was a fumble.
• The player that gets it, stays at that location for the next round and blocks whom ever he chooses.
• The next player that gets it stays and also blocks, and so on until everyone has retrieved the ball.

This was a great drill for us because, at the end of it, the player who got the ball first owed me only 1 push up. The second kid owed me 2, all the way to 14. This football drill works on several skills–running, blocking, avoidance, ball location, closing in, and determination.

This put initiative in the team. It’s not easy for a 6 year old to do 14 push ups. It made them strong mentally and physically.

Technorati Tags: youth football drills, football, football drill, football coach