Football Coaching Tips – Joker in the Ring

One of my subscribers sent these football coaching tips to me recently. These are great ideas to motivate your youth football team and maintain interest in practices.

I’ve been coaching kids from 5 to 10 for many years and I find that incentive during football practice and drills gets the kids motivated. I typically offer something to them on Monday for the Thursday’s end of practice, since we practice Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

If, by the end of the Thursday practice, the kids have done what was asked on Monday, we throw in a fun football drill or scrimmage that they asked to have. A lot of times they enjoy what I call “Joker in the Ring” where a single player stands in a circle of teammates with a football.

The football coach calls out a name/number of a player making the ring and he has to tackle the “joker” in the center. The joker’s job is to get out through the space vacated by the defender. This helps my kids with one-on-one tackling along with running and holding the ball. If the “joker” makes it out, he returns to the center. If the tackler brings the “joker” down before he exits the hole, he becomes the “joker”. We typically go at least once around with each player getting called.

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