Football Drills & Plays

Take a look at this submission from Meghann.  Great ideas for coaching youth flag football. Try these out and let me know if your practices become more effective!

From Meghann…
Coaching a young football team (5 and 6, most have never played before) requires fun football drills…they don’t even know they’re doing a football drill, they think they’re just playing a game.  Their favorite drills are flag tag-mark off a square, say go and let the tagging begin-blowing the whistle and stopping everyone when improper techniques (batting hands away, pulling clothes, out of bounds etc) are being used-once your flag is pulled-they retreat to the sideline and do 15 jumping jacks.

Next is shark attack-mark out a square and let the team start throwing the ball to each other-pull out one player to be the shark and give him a signal (when I touch my ear you attack (start pulling flags).  The shark starts jogging around the square (and while the rest of the team is passing and recieving and not focusing on the shark) then you give him the signal..he storms the square and has 1:30 to pull as many flags as he can.  Once time is up, anyone without a flag or went out of bounds has to do hit-its, and they HATE hit-its (run in place with high knees,(whistle)drop to the ground and do a mock push up-hands to ground push legs straight out behind you).  Start again with a new shark.  Teaches the “shark” to stay focused on the football coach and signals and teaches the “minnows” to anticipate where the attack may be coming from.

Technorati Tags: coaching youth flag football, football, fun football drills, football drill, football coach

Coming up with new ideas for football passing drills can sometimes be a challenge.  Here’s a tip that Darryl, one of my subscribers, sent to me.

From Darryl…
O-line pass protection football drill: Let’s Dance

Each lineman has a partner.  The linemen face each other, with the lead dancer(Offensive Lineman) in the “sitting in the chair” position, with his hands locked behind him. On the voice command of the football coach (who is standing behind the O-linemen), the d-linemen move from side to side.

The O-linemen have to keep their hands locked behind them, while “shadowing” the movement of the d-linemen. The O-linemen have to keep their heads up and their butts in the “chair”.

The key is to get the O-linemen to follow the hips of the D-linemen with their eyes. Wherever the hips go, the defender goes.

We do this football drill on a daily basis with our O-linemen, and it really helps them in pass protection.

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

Thanks to Chris, one of my subscribers, for sending this one in.  If you’re looking for drills for coaching flag football, you should try this out!

From Chris…
Here is my flag football drill to contribute to the swap idea list - “Bengal-In-The-Middle” Drill

Drill Outline: Set up 25 yard wide x 25 yard long field of play.

• One or two players are chosen to start in the middle and play defense. The rest of the team starts at one end of the field of play and are considered offensive players.

• Give each offensive player a ball to carry if available. If there is not a football for everyone, have them take turns carrying the ball.

• On the whistle, all offensive players sprint to the other end of the playing field or other “goal line”. The defensive player(s) in the middle tries to pull as many flags as he can.

• If an offensive player gets his flag pulled, runs out of bounds, falls down, fumbles, or his flag just falls off, then he joins the defensive player in the middle. This goes on until there are no more offensive players left.

Purpose: For the offensive player, it develops running with the ball skills (including how to run an open area) and how to avoid the defensive player. For the defensive player, it teaches flag pulling. Make sure your defensive player is running to where the offensive player is “going” and not to where they are. Additionally, make sure your defense is watching the runner’s waist and not his head or shoulders.

Technorati Tags: coaching flag football, flag football drill, football

I find that the traditional ideas for youth football drills and tips can get a bit stale.  Here’s a football practice idea that Taylor sent to me that has livened things up quite a bit in my practices.

From Taylor…
We have a football drill around here called “Death Alley“.

You have the boys pair up into groups of 2 and you separate them into 2 different lines each at one side.
You need six training bags or matts you use for jumping over for conditioning. Lay them in an alley; have 2 groups come up on each of the alley and lay on their backs facing the sky.

When you blow the whistle they jump up and while they’re getting up throw them a football at which time they will use one who doesn’t have the ball to block and the other for the running back. Tell the runner not to be afraid to get physical with the hits if the team with the ball makes it through, then the ones on defense stay out there and another team comes to run the ball.

If they fail the second time go ahead and let them up and back into the group.  After one group is done another jumps in, and there you have it–a fun way to get your boys to start playing physical with each other and thinking under pressure.

Technorati Tags: youth football drills and tips, football practice, football drill, football

I got the inspiration for this football coaching tip from one of my subscribers.  It includes some fresh ideas on coaching football.  Try it out and let me know what you think!

From William…
I love competition & want to instill this into each & every day with each & every football player we coach.  So, we like to challenge our players to compete…even in off-season…& even against us as football coaches (meaning, if our players complete a task/football drill as directed w/o an error, we as a staff will exercise (pull-ups/push-ups).

We recently did this football drill using 30 players at one time.

1. Place 3 players inside a circle of players.  Each inner-circle player is holding a medicine ball (b/t 10-12 lbs.).  These players have to throw their ball to one player on the outer ring, calling their name first & maintaining a “two point” stance.  In fact, every player has to maintain this position throughout the drill.  Any player not maintaining 2 point stance will be deemed in “error” with push-ups or core-work of some sort as a repercussion.

2.  The outer ring players have four weights (either dumbbells or plates or both) intermittently throughout themselves (we alternated weights of either a weight ending in a 5 (ie; 25 lbs.) or a 0 (ie; 30 lbs. dumbbell).

3. The “5’s” were to move to our players left (hand off to each other)…moving between each player on the outer ring (while still looking for the med. ball coming from the three on the inner ring).

4. With the “0’s” moving to our right… doing the same as the “5.”

5. The players need to work together at not dropping anything as the weights & balls move to each & every player.  If a drop occurs, then the team will do 5 -10 push ups per “error.”

6. If the team has no errors, then the coach running the drill will exercises… ie, pull-ups or push-ups.

Technorati Tags: football coaching tip, coaching football, football, football coach, football drill