1. Circle your team.  If you have more than thirty make two circles.

2.  In the center of the circle there are 3 flat cones or anything that make up a target.

3.  Two players stand about 3 yards from the target.

4.  One player with the football tries to get in the target and the other tries to prevent him.  The defender pushes, punches, and screens the ball carrier all the while everyone is screaming, growling, hooting and hollering.  The ball carrier tries by hook or crook to get the ball in the target.

5   Everyone gets a turn and the team, through cheering, decides who the finalist are.

We have found this football drill convinces our players to be tenacious and resourceful.

It need not be pretty.  With toughness and conviction we can do it.  The hooting and hollering bring out the fake till you make it enthusiasm. That is what we find carries over to practice.

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Many of us use the standard West Point 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 live football tackling drills to get the kids to learn tackling as well as blocking and running. We turned this West Point football drill around so we could use it to run out bread and butter sweep play and did a 4-on-3 offense vs. defense sweep and blocking football drill.

Defense – Stand Up Defensive End that is responsible for getting up field and turning everything inside.  Outside linebacker who is responsible only for the tailback.  Corner back who is responsible for pass first but then run support/
Offense – Wide Receiver responsible for the corner back.  Tight End responsible for the Defensive end.  Lead Running back responsible for the outside linebacker.

Drill is set up using only the field from the hash mark to the sideline.  It is a full contact live drill with blocking and tackling. Cones are set to show players where to lineup and running backs are required to stay within the cones to keep the drill active.

This has been a great drill for us as we get the opportunity to work with offensive and defensive players at the same time and the kids get to learn to block and tackle kids who are running towards a sideline and not just directly at them.  Our effectiveness in handling sweeps from the offensive side as well as the defensive side has been incredible.

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2 cones are set up about 5 yards apart, simulating the area that a runner would come through. Another 2 cones with the same distance apart will be set up exactly 4-6 yards from the first set. Continue these sets of cones until you have 6 or 7 sets of 2 cone groups.

Within each 2 cone group is a tackler standing in the middle of the 2 cone group, facing (1) ball carrier.  4-6 yards behind that tackler is another tackler, in a tackling ready position, and the next tackler is positioned the same way, and so on and so on.

Once the tackler makes a tackle on the ball carrier, the carrier gets up and has to run through the next tackler, and so on. Hence the name- The Gauntlet. There will be a line of ball carriers lined up ready to go after the first tackle is made.
The tackler has to get up quickly after making the tackle because there will be another ball carrier coming at least 5-10 seconds later.

Remember, this football drill offers you an opportunity to evaluate and correct poor tackling technique and poor running as well.

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Shed Drill
Put your biggest and most aggressive players in one line, 5-10 players, and the rest of the team in the other line.  The first football player steps out 3 yards and turns around.  The last player is given the football, although you could place the ball anywhere in the line to focus on recognition.

On the whistle, each player attacks a side of the LB/DL out front. They do their best to alternate sides but it is not necessary.  They all take a turn hitting the player with very little time in between hits.

The LB out front will have a good stance, hit and shed every player as fast as possible while owning the ground he stands on.  Once he has hit and shed all blockers he will make a form tackle on the ball carrier at full speed.  He will then rotate to the end of the line to carry the ball.

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Set up 3 cones.  2 cones are straight across from each other about 7 yards apart.  One is for the defense person (linebacker) and the other is for the offense running back.  The third cone is spread out about 15 yards towards the sideline right in the middle of the other two cones.  Makes a long triangle.

The quarterback sets up between the two cones and hikes the ball and pitches it back to the running back. The running back’s goal is to make it around the cone and head down field without getting caught. The linebacker starts out on his hands and knees and when the football is hiked races to the cone, breakdown and grabs the flag of the running back.

The first week we had one boy being able to pull flags at the point of attack.  Now the boys are catching the running backs flags about 60% of the time.  This has really helped us be able to stop running plays that were eating us up at the beginning of the season.

Linebackers start on their hands and knees because they were anticipating the pitch and getting there too quickly.  The position makes it more of a challenge.

This has also been good at teaching pursuit of the runner and getting the right angle.  Some boys used to try and cut straight to the running back and would end up getting beat.  As soon as they learned to race them to a point in space like the cone they started catching up to the running backs.

This has been good for running the ball as well.  First they have to catch a pitch out and not a hand-off.  Second they are trying to get to the corner of the defense and run to the end zone.  They are able to put a move on a pursuing defensive person and get away.

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Coaching the offensive line can be a very difficult thing to coach since many youth want to be the next Walter Payton.  As a former offensive lineman and a running back I can tell you playing in the trenches was more rewarding than scoring touchdowns.  The reason being is this simple offensive lineman blocking rule: GAP-ON-LINEBACKER.  Applying this rule was fun and I never made a blocking mistake, which was even better.

There are several variations to this rule, but I’ve found that this variation  is very easy to understand and very easy to teach.  Remember nothing will work unless you have repetition with your playbook and rules – football practice without constant repetition will yield an unsuccessful season.

Offensive Lineman Blocking Rule: ‘GAP-ON-LINEBACKER’

GAP: (1st Level) Refers to the inside area for the offensive lineman, which is the most important area to block.  When teaching young athletes this rule they often want to block the man over them even when there is a man in their gap, but if you apply the rule ‘ON’ which is the second part of the rule; they shouldn’t get confused.

ON: (2nd Level) Refers to the man directly over you, pretty easy.

LINEBACKER: (3rd Level) If there is no man in your ‘GAP’ (inside area), or directly over you ‘ON’, than the lineman proceeds down field and blocks a linebacker.

Rule Changes:
For instance, when a Guard or Tackle is pulling to lead block for a trap, sweep, counter, bootleg, passing, etc. this rule obviously does not apply to them, but for the rest of the line it would.

However, 90% of the plays you run at the Pop-Warner or High School level applies, enjoy!

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D-lineman vs. O-lineman–pass rush vs. pass pro.

This works both sides of the football; since most of our kids play both sides.
The def. player has 3 seconds to rush the offensive player, make a move, and touch the blocking dummy standing 5-7 yards deep in the backfield. I give the “ready” call, and the offensive player goes when he is ready. The defensive player gets off when the offensive player moves, and the battle begins.

I count “thousand 1, thousand 2, thousand 3.
If the def. player tags the bag within the 3 sec., he gets 1 point.
If the off. player holds the def. player out for 3 sec., he gets 1 point.
We go for 10 minutes, with groups of how ever many players we have.
They partner up, and we set up the # of bags accordingly to the # of groups we have.

It is a battle, and the kids are working both sides of the ball (off/def).  The one football player who has the most points at the end of 10-15 minutes, gets a prize (”crunch” candy bar, soda pop, energy drink, twinkie, etc.)

It is amazing what a player will do for a Twinkie in this football drill.  Very competitive, very fundamental drill, very physical and a lot of fun for kids.

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The goal of this football drill is to help them remember to not block in the back.

• Line the kids up in front of a football coach holding a dummy.
• Have another coach with a stand up dummy, that has a picture of a helmet on one side, lined up about 5-10 yards down field from the first dummy.
• On the word “go”, the player blocks the first dummy for about 3 seconds, then peels off and goes after the second dummy.
• The coach can either keep the helmet side facing the player or suddenly turn the dummy so the “back” of the dummy faces the football player.
• If the helmet is facing the player, he blocks the dummy.
• If the helmet is not facing the player, he runs past the dummy.
• If the player hits the dummy while the helmet side is facing away from him, he has to do 5 push-ups.

After a few times through this drill, most players learn not to hit the dummy in the “back”. Our blocking in the back penalties decreased dramatically since I came up with this drill.

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This flag football drill is called “a shadow” which is designed for reaction time and agility.

Form three or four depending on how many players show for practice.  At the whistle the first row runs five yards forwards and start chopping their feet.At the second whistle the players turn and face the player in the first row.   He faces them then the player in the first row does different types of movements within 15 yrds from the start to finish line while the other players in that group mirror him/her.

1 min per group. It works well for endurance also.

This next football drill is for my defense for flag football.  The boys loved it because they got to chase the football coach. They lined up the defense in their positions and taught them pursuit angles.  They ran the football until all the players were around me.

This way the team learns to track the football and to swarm the runner. Simple and fun!

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First you need an area to run any distance you want; I used cones to mark off a square and each cone was 40 yards apart. Then you take your group and split them into two smaller groups evenly A and B.

Group A will run around the cones while group B does whatever exercise you want eg. pushups, situps. When all of group A finishes with the run then group B does then run, and when the first people finish the run they start to do the exercise that the other group is doing.

There is no stopping point in this football drill until you have reached your objective say 5 repetitions for each group meaning each group runs 5 times and also does activity B. You can vary this drill anyway you want if for the first rotation you want them to do pushups and then on the second circuit you want them to do situps its all up to you and how you want to run it.

I implemented this drill at the high school where I was coaching and the kids liked this drill better than the gassers they were used to running every practice.

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