Building Better Youth Football Running Backs Step-by-Step Basic and Advanced

Another winningyouthfootball.com Coaching Tool

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Copyright 2013 Cisar Management, all rights reserved. The reproduction, or utilization of this work in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, and recording, digital transfer, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. It may not be forwarded to another coach, downloaded more than once, or copied then given away or sold.

Reproduction of this book is expressly forbidden by the above copyright notice.

Author: Dave Cisar

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Winning Youth Football

Building Better Youth Football Running Backs Step-by-Step Basics and Advanced

E-book

By: Dave Cisar 4

Table of Contents

Chapter 1- What Makes a Good Running Back What Good Backs Look Like: 7-8 Stances: 8-11 Get Offs: 11-13 Pole Drill: 13-14 Chapter 2- Getting Started Warm Ups 15-17 Choosing Backs for Positions: 17-18 Evaluation Drills Sumo: 18 Towel Game: 19 Dummy Relay Races: 20 Deer Hunter: 21 Hawaiian Rules Football: 21-22 Rabbit Races: 22-23 Slam Dunk: 23 Gauntlet: 23-24 Chapter 3- Protecting the Football Importance of Ball Protection: 25-26 Tug Drill: 26 Second Man In: 27 Safe Fumble Recovery: 28-29 Attitude Toward Loose Balls: 29 Ball Switching: 29-31 Chapter 4- Blocking Blocking Basics: 32-35 Splatter Blocking: 35-37 The Punch: 37 Mirror Drills: 37-38 Stalk Drills: 38-39 Oklahoma Drills: 39-40 Open Field Blocking: 40-41 Diamond Drill: 41 Keep Away Drill: 42-43 Pass Blocking: 43-44 Log Blocking Drills: 44-46 Chapter 5- Transferring and Seating the Football The Handoff- Handoff Drills: 47-50 Pitch and Pitch Drills: 50-53 Direct Snap and Drills: 54-55 Chapter 6- Making People Miss Running In Traffic 55 Chariot Drill: 55-56 Gauntlet Force Drill: 56 5

Squeeze Drills: 56-58 Pick a Shoulder Drill: 58 Forearm Drills: 58-59 Sideline Choice Drill: 59-60 Stiff Arming Drills: 60-62 Spin Move and Drills: 62-64 Evasion Moves: 65-71 Chapter 7 Coaching the Burst The Burst: 72-73 Chaser Drills: 73-74 Burst Race and Chase: 74-76 Chapter 8 Building Football Speed and Quickness Adding in Speed Development: 77-78 Ladders: 78 Bag Laterals; 79 Z Cones: 79-80 Bag 1 Steps: 81-82 Lateral Bag Hops: 82 Hops Various: 83-84 Chapter 9 Developing Field Vision and Reading Skills Field Vision Theory: 85 Discipline: 85-86 Mirror Run Slide: 86-87 Log Choice: 87-89 Decide Drills: 89-94 Chapter 10 Fakes Fake Theory and Commitment: 95 Decide Drills: 96 Chapter 11 Coaching Above the Shoulder Pads The Importance of Mental Training: 97-98 Coachability: 98-99 Attitude: 99-100 Others: 100-102 Screen Passes: 87-88 Chapter 12 Pass Catching Fundamentals Fundamental Pass Catching Approach and Drills: 103-107 Chapter 13 Accountability Accountability Training: 108-109 Using Hudl: 109-114 Chapter 14 Practice Plans Sample Practice Plans: 115-122 Author Page: 123 Additional Resources: 123-125

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Dear Coach,

Thank you very much for your interest in helping your team develop more effective running backs, it is sincerely appreciated. I congratulate you on taking the time to make yourself a better youth football coach. When your players look back on their football playing days, they are going to remember you and it’s up to you as to what kind of experience that’s going to be for him.

You will find this is a very easy to read book and an excellent resource for not only the new coach trying to get his feet wet coaching running backs, but the experienced coach looking to get better. In the book you will gain access to our legendary practice plans, drills, approaches and techniques that will allow your running backs to excel. Our step- by-step approach will also allow you to successfully implement the skills and drills with ease. Don’t be afraid to print out the drills to take with you to practice as a quick cheat sheet reminder.

When you coach running backs well and people see the improvement and unique way you are building them, people take notice. You get kids to come back to your team and many times word just gets around, youth athletes parents talk. That means that you can attract players who might have played for other teams or even get kids who may not have played at all.

Our hope is that this will be a tool to help you be a better coach. This book is dedicated to the all players whose lives we touch by coaching. It is dedicated to all the coaches that coach for the right reasons, to train our youth in “the ways they should go.” Our prayer is that you will use this information to become a better coach and better leader. We hope that you use your leadership position to inspire your kids and help shape them into reaching their full potential not only as football players, but also as people.

Dave Cisar

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Chapter 1

What Makes a Good Youth Running Back

How do you define if a running back is “good or not? And once we define “good” how do we get our kids to that point? Let’s first start with what good is when it comes to youth football running backs. They: protect the football well, attack at proper angles, seat the ball well, block consistently, burst to and through contact, play physical and aggressive, play fast, have good field vision and decision making skills, have good body control, get vertical quickly, are quick and can change direction well, can make people miss, break tackles, fake well, is dependable/durable and can receive (catch) the ball well. A good running back also has “it” between the ears, he is coachable, competitive, a team player and he is a leader.

A lot of people think good running backs are born and not made. While there certainly is a bit of genetics work at play for the truly great college, NFL and even youth running backs, getting to the “good level” in youth football is attainable by most. Our job as running back coaches is to get our average kids to “good” and our good kids to great.

This book is going to address each of the areas we’ve defined as necessary to define a running back as “good.” You are going to be exposed to some methods, coaching points and drills that you may have seen before as well as spins on some old ones and a few you probably haven’t seen at all. Approach this with an open mind to get the most out of it.

Credentials Whenever taking direction from anyone, it’s good to know what their background is. You don’t want to take advice from someone that hasn’t proven his approach on the field. That’s fair enough, I’m the same way. I’ve coached youth football for 25 years in 5 different leagues in 3 different organizations in 3 different cities. I’ve coached in the suburbs, inner-city and rural areas, all three. I’ve started 2 different youth programs from scratch and had the privilege of coaching hundreds of youth football players, many of which have gone on to play at the high school and collegiate level. I’ve coached DI, DII and NAIA kids and kids who have gone on to lead the state in rushing in the states largest class. Since moving to the Single Wing offense about 17 seasons ago, my teams have led our respective very large and competitive leagues in scoring in 13 of those 17 seasons, averaging nearly 36 points per game from age 7-14. The net is, what we are teaching works, it has been proven on grass over a long period of time. We didn’t get lucky with a group or two of freak athletes, over the long haul we 8 have been successful in every age group and demographic imaginable. That’s all we are trying to get across to you, we aren’t trying to brag. We just want you to know, you aren’t wasting your valuable time. This isn’t highbrow fluff or conjecture by someone that hasn’t been in your shoes. I’ve been there and I’m there right now. It doesn’t matter what offense you are running or what area of the country you are in, you ARE going to be able to get a bunch of take aways from this book and DVD to make your running backs better and score more points next season. Once your parents see how you are breaking things down, your attention to detail and unique approach and the improvement they will see in their sons, you are going to have immediate credibility. That means your parents aren’t going to be shopping their kids around and you might even attract a few stellar running backs from your area. Parents follow where they think their kids are going to get the best coaching and if you roll that way, this approach may help you in your efforts to attract players. We aren’t saying what we do is the only way to do things or even the best way. What we can say with great confidence is that it has worked for us, our players and hundreds of programs that have copied what we are doing. If what you are using is working well, look at this as an opportunity to examine how you do things and maybe augment what you are doing now with what you find here. If your teams have struggled developing running backs, consider adopting the entire approach turn key and see how you do. Who Are Running Backs? No matter what type of offense you are running, you have running backs. They may be called Fullback, I Back, Slot Back, Flanker, Wingback, H Back, Blocking Back, Right or Left Halfback or even Quarterback, but in youth football in the end you have some backs that run the ball. If you are running Spread your Slots or Flankers may be more pass catchers than they are running backs, but they still need to know how to carry the football, protect the football, block, break tackles, burst, make people miss and how to make good decisions once they have the ball in their hands. You may have players like these split time with your receivers group when it’s indy time. Our Wingbacks and Tight Ends that we plan on throwing to spend half of every offensive practice segments with the receivers group. Stance

The stance is something that varies a bit from scheme to scheme and personal preference, but is always a fundamental building block that must be perfected in those first few practices. In youth football it’s usually a good idea to work off of a standardized stance. Whatever stance you decide on, make sure all your coaches are teaching it the same way. Nothing is worse than seeing a youth football team four games into the season and still in poor stances. Weak stances will reflect poorly on you as a coach, so make sure to teach it well and hold the kids accountable to perfection when it comes to stances. 9

So many youth coaches ask their players to learn and execute multiple movements all at once. This is never so evident when I see how most youth football coaches teach the stance. Usually it consists of a coach lecturing his players on about 7 different points of the stance, head up, feet shoulder width apart, knees bent, back flat etc and of course most of the players are either lost or bored after the second sentence and have tuned the coach out before he gets to the good part. Then the coach wonders why his kids stances look so awful and why he has to many frustrated kids.

Progression teaching says that we are going to break down every movement into tiny pieces and then we are going to perfect each of those tiny pieces as we add them on top of our foundation until we have a perfectly constructed end product. In youth football I like to add a bit of humor into what we teach. Humor lightens the mood a bit, face it some of your kids aren’t sure about football just yet. They may even be pretty descent athletes and are still determining if football is their thing or not. You also have some nervous Nellies who aren’t very good at most athletic things and are worried they are going to get left behind like they do at everything else they’ve tried. You may even have some good athletes who just don’t process information very well. Progression teaching can help all these kids and insure that each point of emphasis is being covered.

We always start with EVERYONE learning the 3-point stance. Here is an example of something we would do when we teach this stance, this is me talking:

Guys the stance is very important, so we are going to take it one step at a time to make sure everyone gets it down well. First our feet need to be shoulder width apart and your feet need to be straight. I then put my feet out about 5 feet apart to show what to wide is and then right next to each other to show too tight.

In football we have our feet straight and shoulder width apart, in ballet, the little girl ballerinas have their feet closer and their toes are pointed out. I demonstrate this stance. Fellas, we aren’t ballerinas, we are football players. So when you hear the word no ballerinas, you are going to get into this position. By associating movements to pictures you have created in that players mind, he is going to have a MUCH easier time remembering the movement. The more interesting and unusual that picture is, the more apt the player is going to remember. Just think about it, are kids going to remember those 7 static and boring points you are trying to get them to remember on their stance or are they going to remember that picture of the ballerina you’ve implanted in their heads?

You can have one foot offset, to the midpoint of the heel many do. If you choose this approach make sure that the back foot is the dominant side foot. So if the player is right handed, his right foot is set back. The toes of his right foot would be at about to the midpoint of the heel of the left foot.

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Have each player assume this position of shoulder width apart. This is something we do in our warm up group as a team. Make sure every coach has a set number of players, if there are 25 kids and 5 coaches, each coach is coaching a set group of 5 players. It is imperative those coaches only coach their 5 kids and that the boys are held to a perfect standard.

So all the kids are standing, I yell out “no ballerinas”, the kids stay frozen in those stances as the coaches inspect each player to make sure his feet are shoulder width apart and feet are pointed straight and are even, not staggered. I then yell out “good job” and clap, once I’ve started clapping the players can now move out of that frozen state. Repeat again so the kids are conditioned to respond to the words “no ballerinas”. Make SURE they stay frozen until you clap and say “good job”.

Now it’s time to describe the second step. This is the picture I like to paint; Guys how many of you have been to a Nebraska football game in Lincoln? Well if you have gone you know that the stadium seats about 86,000 people and the stadium has been sold out for every game since 1962. The stadium was never built with enough bathrooms to begin with so the lines are always very long. Imagine this, you went to last weeks game in a game that they didn’t allow any women to attend, all 86,000 people are guys. Also imagine that every bathroom in the entire stadium with the exception of a single toilet was broken and closed down. Imagine that all the men that day that needed to use the restroom had to use that one toilet. Now imagine that you ate two pieces of Valentinos pizza during halftime and now it’s the end of the game and you have to go number two. You know you cant’ wait and the closest restroom is over 20 minutes away, you have no choice, you have to use that one filthy toilet. Are you doing to sit down all the way down on the filthy seat, are you going to drop bombs from 10,000 feet or are you going to hover just above the seat? Of course the answer is hover.

Ryan demonstrates the “outhouse” position, where the knees are bent; head is up, elbows resting on knees. Now to teach it, yell “no ballerinas” as each player freezes in the no ballerina position. Make sure all the coaches look at the kids and make sure they are in the correct position. Clap and encourage. Then yell out “outhouse”, the kids are now frozen in the second position your taught them. Again each coach looks at the 5 kids in his mini team and makes sure they are in the correct position. Clap and encourage.

The third progression is the hand placement. Now it’s story time. Imagine that when you are in outhouse your left eye popped out of your head and landed on the ground right in front of you. Those little wire things are still attached to your head and your eyeball is just touching the grass. You are going to delicately grab that eyeball with your three middle fingers so you can put it back into your head. Ryan demonstrates as you show the players you want little to no weight on those fingers. You want to keep your head up, because there is a troll walking around that likes to steal eyeballs, you need to keep a look out for him. 11

Now you go through the progression again, “no ballerinas”- good job, clap, encourage as your coaches coach up their 5 players. Then “outhouse”- good job, clap, encourage, then finally “eyeball”, clap encourage, “good”. Good tells the kids it is ok to come out of the movement, they no longer have to stay frozen. The kids have to stay frozen in order for your coaches to do their quality control.

The last step is “paper”, paper tells them to imagine that one sheet of paper is being slid between their heel and the ground. This helps the players get to the balls of their feet. You don’t want the player to be up on his toes, you don’t want him flat footed either, so just a single sheet of paper. So now the progression is; no ballerinas, outhouse, eyeball and paper.

The body is bent at the hips, not waist, with knees bent, butt down, head up and back straight. The center of gravity is the hips with most of the weight still on the legs. The down hand is slightly in front of player with knuckles or fingers firmly touching the ground to get a body lean. The player is on the balls of his feet and ready to go. By using this method all the kids are going to be in perfect stances by the second practice, most of them in the first. More importantly they are going to remember how to do it for the entire season. You can break almost any movement down to tiny pieces and reconstruct it one building block at a time. If you get a little creative you can create some of your own work pictures to help your kids remember. With running backs we allow them to stagger their dominant foot back to the instep of their other foot.

The 3-point stance is the stance many use for their Fullbacks or Halfbacks. This stance has stood up to the test of time and is used by many “I” formation, Wishbone, Dead T, Double Wing, Veer, Pro and Wing T teams. It puts

kids in a stron g athletic position, lower to the ground which can provide some deception if they are close to the line of scrimmage.

Many teams have gone to the 2-point stance for their running backs. It varies from the 3- point only by the fact the hands are resting lightly on upper portion of the thigh pads, not on the knees. The 2-point allows for better pre-snap field vision and is often times more comfortable for the player. However, it is less deceptive and most of the running backs I see in youth football false step their first step when they are in 2-point stances.

False Steps

A false step is a step backwards prior to the first step forward. It is wasted movement that slows the fast running back down to average, the average running back to slow and the 12 slow running back to a pace where it’s difficult for him to even get out of the backfield. The false step can be easily corrected. Have the player pigeon toe is toes inward about 1 ½ to 2 inches. Then have him flex the inner part of his knees inward at about 1-2 inches as well. If he does that it is physically impossible to false step.

Players must be held accountable to a perfect stance in everything they do. Getting into a perfect stance is a choice. If you allow players to get sloppy in their stances, they will not be able to come off the ball properly and it leads to sloppiness in other areas. Be vigilant, it’s something you are doing for your players, not to them.

Once the stance has been perfected you need to work on coming out of the stance. Coming out fast and athletically is the difference between teams that win and teams that lose. Most youth football games are determined by who wins the speed battle on those first two steps. The first step in winning that battle is understanding how to come out on the snap cadence.

Get Off Cadence Claps

Before you start on Get Off type drills, your players need to understand how they interact and respond to the cadence. Whatever cadence you use, it has to be consistent and melodic so the kids can anticipate the snap count. The offense always knows what the snap count is, the defense doesn’t, use that to your advantage. The offensive lineman has to be trained to come out on the first sounded utterance of the snapped count. If you snap count is shift, down, ready set go and you are snapping on go, the offensive linemen need to come out on the G of go, not the o of go. They should be able to time the snap to the point they are coming out just as the Quarterback utters the first part of the g sound of go.

Stand your linemen in a circle and have them clap one time as you utter the cadence. If your cadence is shift, down, ready set, go, they should all be clapping in unison on the G of go as they ANTICIPATE the g sound. At first it will sound like applause, lots of claps not synchronized. Once you get good at it, everyone will clap as one. The key is to make sure your Quarterbacks are all using the same melodic cadence with the same inflection and pauses. If you are using the “no play” don’t forget to practice that as well during Cadence Clap drills.

Get Offs

Offensive players must be taught to move on the cadence. So one of the very the first thing you should work on is stance and get-offs. The players are all in one line and facing a cone downfield at about 6 yards. The coach has the ball set on an imaginary line of scrimmage that no player is crossing prior to ball movement. The stance is the same standard 3 or 2 point stance you taught earlier. Every player is held accountable to be in a perfect stance. 13

When a player comes out of his stance on the get off he has to come out low, stepping with the back foot first. What you are looking for is movement on the “g” of go, you want them anticipating the melodic cadence of “shift, down, ready, set, go” or sub in your cadence if you choose to stick with it.

You are looking for a gentle rise in the shoulders. The player should come to an almost upright position with still a bit of body lean after step 6-7.

If you see the player taking a false step, this must be corrected. A false step is when a player takes a step back prior to taking a step forward. This wasted movement will come back to haunt him when you play stronger, quicker and more athletic teams. If a player is false stepping ask him to pigeon toe his stance just a bit. He will need to bring in his front toes about 2 inches is all. He will also need to flex the inner part of his knees inward about an inch or so. When he does this, it is physically impossible for him to false step. If you want quick linemen, the first thing you need to solve is false stepping.

Pole Drill

The pole drill will help your running backs come out low off of the cadence. Buy some rigid PVC and have some dads hold it just below their nipples about 1 yard off an imaginary line of scrimmage. Buy a piece that isn’t sagging too much and about 16 feet in length so all of the backs can get under the pole. The goal is for the players to come up gradually rather than standing straight up. You can do this with Get Offs, with handoff drills, almost any drill you do. Make sure the players are in whatever stance they are playing for their appropriate positions.

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While stance and get-offs may seem elementary and monotonous, they are key to your running backs success. You have to get these down before you move on to anything. As the season progresses you will need to maintain an very high standard in this area. These can be every day drills and are something we will practice even in the last week of the season.

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Chapter 2

Getting Started

Choosing Backs for Positions

Where you put the players allotted to you will depend on your offensive scheme, blocking schemes and approach you take to blocking. If you are a Markham style Double Wing team your Fullback is going to need to be a bruiser and both your Wingbacks and Quarterback are going to have to be tough kids who like to block. If you are an Unbalanced Single Wing team like my teams run, your most athletic player who has some durability is going to be the Quarterback, the burner is going to be the Wingback and the tough guy kid who is explosive and enjoys contact is going to be my Blocking Back. Just make sure you understand your offense well enough to develop and write down very detailed position descriptions for every one of your backfield positions. The detailed position descriptions should include attributes like quickness, aggressiveness, body control, explosiveness, football speed, power, football smarts, consistency and temperament. Warm-Ups

No matter what type of drills you are working on, you need to start out with a warm up. Most of the better youth and High School teams no longer spend 20 minutes doing elaborate calisthenics and stretching routines. There have been many studies that have shown that short dynamic warm ups are ideal for preventing injury and preparing youth players for contact.

We start our dynamic warm ups with two lines facing each other, just two lines. Why bother wasting five minutes lining kids up in 4-5 lines? I used to do that too, we see so many coaches taking roll etc and sending kids out to the cal square one at a time, stealing precious practice time. Do roll while the kids are lined up in their cal lines, while they are doing their movements. Only mark off the kids that are missing. If you don’t recognize a kid in the cal line, walk over to him and quietly ask his name, it’s a great way to learn names and NOT WASTE TIME.

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The “Formation”

After you have the two lines facing each other about 10 yards apart, have everyone get into a stance. If you have 25 players and five coaches, assign a coach to every five kids, no coach crosses over to another coaches 5 kids. Each coach makes sure his five kids do every drill perfectly.

When you introduce a drill for the first time, have a coach demonstrate the drill, then have one of your experienced players demonstrate the drill. After the kids are in perfect stances, come out on the “go” cadence, and do high knees at a very slow pace to the center of the area. Remember we are going from still in a low intensity mindset during warm ups, our goal is blood flow to the muscles while we also learn football skills. The kids jog slowly towards the other line of players, then turn around and jog back. You are looking for proper arm swinging movement, and very high knees, it’s a very slow drill. Do that movement 2-3 times on the cadence, with a designated player calling the cadence. With this drill you are teaching stance, cadence, get offs and proper running technique all while also getting properly warmed up.

We like to practice our “no play” play during this segment, by calling a secret code (black). This tells the kids to stay in their stances and NOT to fire out on the cadence of “go” we are trying to draw the defense off-sides with this play. The kids are only allowed to come out of their stances once they hear the coaches whistle indicating either a penalty or a time out has been called. We call timeout if we can’t get the other team to jump the snap count. We teach the “no play” in the first 10 minutes of our very first practice, yes the kids know a real play that we will run in every game we play in at the end of the first 10 minutes of the very first practice. We then do butt kicks, same two lines, now the players come out of their stance and run so that when they bring their legs back their feet actually touch their behinds. There is no high knee action here, again looking for good arm movement and again at a very slow pace.

The Warm Up Routine

Next do five jumping jacks, together using a unified shouted out count. That’s it, no pushups, sit-ups, agility or grass drills. The kids are going to get plenty winded running your practices out at a very brisk pace. Move right to angle form-fit-freeze-tackling. If angle form tackling is run properly at a brisk pace, you have four or more groups going and the kids should be breathing a bit heavy. About one rep every 6 seconds is what you should be aiming for. Too many coaches know a lot about cals and agilities and use up too much time in this area, they need to get smart about the football part and drill that. Remember we are playing football; we are not in a pushup contest or cross-country race.

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Just think about the guy doing 25 minutes of cals and stretching, compared to your 8 minutes. Over the course of 1 week of 3 per week practices, he would have lost 45 minutes of practice time to you. Over the course of a 14 week season, he would have lost 10.5 hours which is more than 5 full practices. All these time losses add up pretty quickly. Are you beginning to see why some teams look so much better prepared than others even when they may even practice “less” ?

There are teams all across the country taking this even a step further by going to skill building warm-ups. Teams huddle up on the coach to start practice and they go right to their individual groups. They warm up by doing skill building drills for that position group at quarter speed. So your receivers are running 15 yard fade patterns at a crawl. Running backs are running handoff or pitch drills in slow motion, you get the idea. Kill two birds with one stone, get blood flow to the muscles doing low intensity work, while building your football playing skills. My friend Rick Darlington does this and he is the head coach for the Apopka Blue Darters team from Apopka, Florida. They compete at 8A, that is Florida’s largest class. They have also won two state titles in the last 8 years.

Evaluating Players While Having Fun Even if you are not in the position to choose an “A” team or do a draft, you will have to evaluate the players that eventually end up playing on your team. A reasonable evaluation process can help you make the right decision as to who plays where. What you are looking to do is ACCURATELY determine who has the baseline skills needed to play the various positions on the team. Before you do that, you have to come up with detailed position descriptions of every position on the team and what you are looking for from a skills standpoint. Youth football isn’t about 40 yard dashes, it is about 5 and 10 yard bursts, followed by changes of direction and more 5 and 10 yard bursts. If we exclude punts and kickoffs the average youth football game has 2 plays that will go for 40 yards or more. So why would we bother evaluating a player for something that only happens twice during a game? What is important is that your evaluations are fair, competitive and actually measure for skills the players will need to play their respective positions. That means we should be measuring for “football speed”, explosiveness, body control, strength, heart and football athleticism. What is also important is that the evaluations do not dominate your practice time and that they are fun. No kid likes to stand around in long lines to be timed in the 40-yard dash by some dad that may or may not get the time done correctly. Don’t be concerned by what 40 time anyone has, be concerned about how they stack up against other players on the team. You are going to have to cobble together a team of the kids from this group no matter the talent, so you have to know how they compare to each other. 18

When I have my personal team of 22-24 kids, I know what I’m looking for and make my decisions after watching two fun team building drills, the towel game, the deer hunter game and then the gauntlet drill. If I were coaching for the first time or if I had the “A” team where I have to choose from over 100 kids, I might use the following more scientific approach; Fun Team Building and Evaluation Drills

Football should be fun for the kids; practice should be something they look forward to do every time, not something to dread. We have found the following games not only are fun, but also build real football skills and expose various components of any players’ abilities. While we use the following drills to evaluate all of our players, we use these specifically to help determine not only where kids play on the offensive line, but which players are better than others.

Sumo Drill Goal: Have fun, teach players to stay low, and help determine who the aggressive kids are.

Put all players foot to foot in a big circle. Put two weaker kids in the middle in two-point, low stances, with their hands on the chest of their opponent. On the signal they are to push and drive the other player to the edge of the circle. The player whose foot touches the edge loses: send him to be a member of the circle, then put the next better kid in the middle. Keep the winner in until he loses, no twisting or turning is allowed, it’s all straight up power. You will find the player that stays low, gets his hips under his opponent and uses his legs in short choppy steps, wins. Sound familiar ? When done, this is your “King of the Hill” drill. If time permits do some match-ups against similar skilled players, or demonstrate how a smaller player with good technique crushes a big player with poor technique.

Another way to do this drill is to set up say 2 circles of 12 players each. Start with all the players over 100 lbs in once circle and every player under 100 in the other or something to that effect. When a player wins, he moves up to the over 100 lb circle, the loser goes to the under 100 lb circle. Keep making matchups and moving kids around until you figure out who your top 12 kids are.

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Towel Game Goal: To have fun, help players understand need to stay low and never give up. Helps you determine who the strongest and toughest kids are.

Take a large bath towel, roll it tightly the long way and tape off the ends by wrapping white athletic tape around the end 8-9 times. Also, bind up the middle in same fashion. It now looks like a puffy rope. Now take three cones and space them off in a triangle about 5 yards from the, towel in the middle. Select three fairly evenly matched kids and have each grab the towel at a taped area, one on each end and one in the middle. No player wraps the towel around his hand or arms. Make sure one cone lines up with each player, again about 5 yards away. Now the player must drag the other players toward their cone and touch the cone with one hand, while keeping hold of the towel.

To win, the player must touch his cone AND have hold of towel. The keys are to stay low, use your legs, keep your feet wide, use short choppy steps and never give up, sound familiar? If a player loses contact with towel, he can get back in game as long as the game has not yet declared a winner by another player touching their cone. As an added twist, we like to have the remaining players get behind the cone of the player they think is going to win, if they choose wrong, have them run a short lap, while those that chose correctly sit smugly by. This is very fun and team building if done properly. You will see lots of cheering and jeering on this one and many happy parent faces.

5 yards

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Dummy Relay Races

Goal : Determine the core strength of players while having a fun competitive relay race Divide the team into 4 equal groups and line them up in a column behind a cone. Line up all 4 teams in columns that are even. Set another cone out about 10 yards from the starting line cone of each team. Set a tall blocking dummy in front of the line of each team. The first player on each team must pick up the dummy and carry it 10 yards to the cone, go around the cone and come back to the starting line where he the passes the dummy to the next player in line on his team. There are no rules as how the dummy must be carried but most just bear hug it and run. Most players hold the dummy upright, close to their chests. The losing team must run a short lap or do 10 pushups etc. This one will get the players and parent howling, To spice it up, pair two teams against each other and have just one cone 10 yards away set up for both teams to “share” the cone. Now have your relay race with no restrictions on contact at the intersection cone, be ready for some awesome demolition derby type action as the players slam into each other with their dummy in front for protection kind of like one of those inflatable sumo wrestling games.

Mind you while mom and dad and the kids are thinking we are just playing a fun game, I’m looking at which players core strength allows them to carry a 30+ pound awkward dummy 10 yards and back on a run without losing their balance. Find kids that can do this well and you’ve found your athletes. They may not have won any straight speed race, or strength test, but they will be able to carry themselves on the football field. This is one of the very best evaluation games you can do.

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Deer Hunter Goal: To get some conditioning in and determine who your athletes are.

This is a great drill to wrap practice up with and to find out in the first week who your best athletes are and maybe sneak in some conditioning. Map out a square or circle with cones, the square is usually 30 yards by 30 yards or so. Choose four kids (hunters) and put yellow shell jerseys on them to distinguish them from the other players. Put the four hunters in the center of the square and ask everyone else spread out anywhere they want in the square. Then take four soft small round balls, like mini nerf soccer balls, and give them to your center guys, the “hunters”. The hunters throw the balls at the other players, the “deer”. If the ball hits a deer, he goes to the outside of the square and sits in a designated area or goes right to another game you have set up. Only allow the hunters to throw and the last four deer still left standing are the new hunters. Those deer that survive are almost always your best athletes. If you do not have nerf balls you can do it by having the hunters tag the deer with their hand. Coaches need to supervise and make sure “killed” deer move to outside the square. If you don’t want to mess with the balls, just have the hunters tag the deer with their hands.

You will find that when the last 2-3 survivors are fighting to stay alive you will witness some of the most elusive start and stop football moves known to man. Play this game and you will be nodding knowingly of who your best true athletes are in just 10-20 minutes. The kids LOVE this game and even though they will be sweating and breathing hard after the game is over, they will beg for more. When was the last time your kids begged to do more conditioning sprints? Your parents will love this one as well.

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Hawaiian Rules Football Goal: Build teamwork, speed, conditioning and see which players have body control and pass catching skills.

coach

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Map out boundaries of reasonable length 30 x 50 or so. Divide up players 6 or so per side, it can be 4- 5 or 7-8 to a side, but it does not work well over 8. If you have 24 kids, you should have four teams of six players. Two teams play each other head-to-head, so you can have two games going at same time. They have four “downs” to score. All snaps are shotgun style; a player must not take more than two steps before he releases the ball. It can be a forward pass, shovel pass, toss or lateral,

etc. Beginning rush is “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two”, then rush. If the ball carrier takes more than two steps, the play is dead. The play continues until the ball hits the ground or until a player holds the ball past a count of 5. If it was an incomplete pass, the original line of scrimmage or in the event of multiple passes, the point of the last “passers” feet. Once the play is dead, a new down is started. All offensive players must start each play at or behind the line of scrimmage. Each player must rotate, to start out as the quarterback for a down. There is no tackling, the defenders look more like basketball defenders. Coaches need to referee and do ball placement to keep the game moving fast. In the event of interception, remember the players can only run two steps then they have to get rid of the ball. Always encourage lots of short passes and laterals rather than going for a bomb each play. Keep it fast paced, Shirts vs. Skins, it only moves well with better athletes. For teams age 8-10 it’s best to include a coach or two on each team. It should look like a fast-moving rugby game when done right. There are no kicks, extra points, etc. after a score; the ball is placed on the 10 yard line to start a new series.

Rabbit Race Goal: To build speed, get some conditioning in, have fun and find out who your fast kids are .

Instead of sprints, do rabbit race drills. Line up all your players in one horizontal line, or best to do it against a fence. Set up a finish line with a set of cones or shells about 40 yards away, then select three “rabbits” to run. Place the rabbits in between the finish line and out in front of the line of players, based on their speed. For example, a slow heavy kid may get a 15-yard head start and a fast kid only three yards. The goal is to tackle (if you have pads on, or touch if you don’t) the rabbit before he passes the finish line. The winners are allowed to be the rabbit for the next turn or sit out; it’s their choice. If a rabbit makes it to the end of the finish line without being tackled, he can be the rabbit again or become a tackler.

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Slam Dunk Goal: Determine aggressiveness of players while improving teamwork, tackling and ball carrying skills.

Put cones up to boundary a 10-yard-by-10-yard square. In the center of the square lay out two mesh shell jerseys on the ground. Choose two teams of similar sized and skilled players. Team one is on offense first with just two players. Team two is on defense, with three players all holding blocking shields. Give each offensive player a football, at the sound the offense has 10 seconds to enter the square and slam the ball into the mesh jersey. The defenders must stay inside the square. If a ball carrier is driven out of the square, he is done for that possession. Give each team 10 seconds to get together and formulate a strategy prior to starting each possession. The two players on offense can both be ball carriers and try to score or one can block for the other. We give each team a chance to go on offense and defense before we declare a winner. This game helps develop teamwork, aggression and open field tackling skills and is very competitive.

Ball Carriers

Defenders

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Gauntlet Drill

The Gauntlet Dill is a classic ball security and stripping drill that also is a great tool for evaluating running backs. Line up 4- 12 players facing each other in a line no wider than 1 yard apart from each other. Have the “running back” secure the ball about 3 yards back from the gauntlet to give him a running start. He must run full speed through the lines of players with both hands over the ball and with his hips lowered. The players facing each other are allowed to use just their hands to swipe, punch and rip the ball out. You will find the running backs often time get slowed up and even end up sideways or running backwards as the defenders swipes and rips take the running back off his intended course down the middle of the gauntlet. Once the ball

is on the ground it is a live ball and everyone is encouraged to attempt a safe recovery. Once through the gauntlet, the player runs to the cone, drops his hips, touches it and returns the ball to the coaches feet.

This drill can be done with or without pads and will show you which players are willing to run through contact. However whenever you go without pads, refrain from making the ball live to all defenders. You don’t want non helmeted heads possibly banging against each other. This will separate the Tarzans from the Janes pretty quickly as only those that lower their hips, shoulders and keep their legs moving have any chance of making it through the Gauntlet. This is where your athletic running back candidates get separated from your kids who are real football players.

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Chapter 3

Protecting the Football

How Important is Protecting the Ball?

How Important Are Turnovers in Youth Football? In the 2011 Super Bowl, the Pittsburgh Steelers probably lost the game due to turnovers. In the history of the Super Bowl the team that has won the turnover battle has won 33 and lost 3 of those games. Important in the NFL? Yes.

But how important are turnovers in the youth game? The answer is they are more important than the NFL or College game. The reason turnovers may be even more important in youth football is the fact that there far fewer possessions in a youth football game. Most youth football games have just 10 minute quarters, while College and NFL games have 15 minute quarters. In youth football there are many more running plays compared to the prevalence of passing you see in the NFL and College games which also brings the number of possessions down.

Most youth team huddle and do not run plays at the same pace as most NFL and College teams, which means even fewer plays. The typical youth football game has just 74 total offensive snaps, while the number of offensive snaps in an NFL game can be nearly twice that. Now do you understand why you have to make every possession count in youth football and why turnovers are so important? When was the last time you saw a youth football team use up an entire quarter on a single offensive drive? I’ve seen it quite a few times. How many times does that happen in the NFL or College game? The answer is never.

Place a premium on protecting the football and creating turnovers in your program. In 2005 we had just 2 turnovers in a 11 game season, where we went 11-0 and won a State Title. In 2006 during an 11-1 season we had just 4 turnovers in 11 games. In 2007 just 4 in 11 games, and a 10-1 season. On the other hand turnovers played a key role in nearly every loss we’ve had in the last 160 games. In 2012 we mercy ruled every team we played with the exception of one team. In that game we had 5 turnovers including 3 fumbles and a bobbled on-side kick. We only caused a single turnover and ended up losing that game by a touchdown. We had just 2 turnovers the entire season with the exception of that loss. We have lost 21 of our last 160 games, in 19 of those losses we had more turnovers than our opponent. In 17 of those 19 losses we had 2 or more turnovers than our opponent. It is really that black and white, turnovers are by far the 27 most important single statistic that determines wins and losses. Teams that lose the ball and lose the turnover battle, beat themselves. Ball security is key and has played a major role in the success of most championship level youth football teams.

There are a number of ways you can go about creating turnovers on defense. One is attacking ball security. Making this a priority requires you to walk a tightrope of sorts. The ball-carrier must be secured before you allow your tacklers to attempt a strip. If you don’t teach this approach, you will often times have kids attempting to dislodge the ball while letting the running back make his escape. We always teach ball stripping is for the second or third player in, not the primary tackler.

Tug Drill

The tug drill is the basic ball stripping drill used to teach backs and receivers ball security as well as defenders how to strip the ball. It starts with a ball carrier facing a cone 10 yard away, with a ball in one arm. The defender is stationed directly behind the ball-carrier with his non-ball side hand grasping the middle part of the jersey of the runner. He gasps firmly on that jersey as the ball-carrier leans forward and runs with his knees high. The runner should be exerting just enough force to make the pile go slowly down the field. The defender meanwhile is using his ball side hand to punch the ball out from behind aiming between the elbow and the ribs. He can also try to come over the top, using his playside hand to come over the runner forearm and rip the under part of the football upwards and out. Once the ball comes out, the ball is live, both players use the safe fumble recovery technique to secure the football.

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Second Man in Drill

Most turnovers in youth football are caused by the second man in. You have to prepare your running backs for this scenario. One of the easiest ways to do this is use a modified tug drill. As the primary defender tugs on the back of the ball-carrier and lets him slowly drag him down the field for 15 yards, add in a second tackler. This tackler is aligned to the ball side of the ball-carrier about 7 yards to the side of the ball-carrier away from the starting point On the whistle this stripper attacks the ball carrier from the side using the punch and rip techniques described above. Again once the ball comes out it turns into a safe recovery drill for all 3 players in the drill.

Gauntlet Drill

The Gauntlet Dill is a classic ball security and stripping drill that also is a great tool for evaluating running backs. Line up 4-12 players facing each other in a line no wider than 1 yard apart from each other. Have the “running back” secure the ball about 3 yards back from the gauntlet to give him a running start. He must run full speed through the lines of players with both hands over the ball and with his hips lowered. The players facing each other are allowed to use just their hands to swipe, punch and rip the ball out. You will find the running backs often time get slowed up and even end up sideways or running backwards as the defenders swipes and rips take the running back off his intended course down the middle of the gauntlet. Once the ball is on the ground it is a live ball and everyone is encouraged to attempt a safe recovery.

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Safe Fumble Recovery Drill

Many times once the ball has been fumbled by the running back, he will give up on the ball and lay on the ground. The old “fake injury I hope someone feels sorry for me non injury” is common in the world of running backs. If the ball goes to the ground the running back must be trained to aggressively and properly recover the ball. Recovering the football is something that most youth football players do not how to do intuitively. They either jump right on top of the ball with their stomachs on top of the ball or they like to scoop and score like they see on TV on Saturdays and Sundays. Neither approach probably makes sense for the youth football player. In youth football most balls that are attempted to be “scoop and score” end up being flubbed as well and end up back in the hands of the offense.

Teach all players the “safe” recovery to begin with. The safe recovery requires the player to approach the ball to the side laying down on the players side with the ball cradled into the stomach with the players shoulders and legs curling up around the ball. Think of a baby on it’s side in the fetal position. Once the ball is secured ask the player to have both arms wrapped around the ball with one hand covering each end of the ball, elbows in, covering the ball with his entire body. If a player just plops on top of the ball, the ball will squirt out and the ball is also going to knock the wind out of the recovering player.

Safe Fumble Recovery Competition

Youth football players have to get used to scrambling and fighting for the football in live drills if you want your team to excel in creating turnovers. A great drill for this is the safe fumble recovery competition drill. Start with players aligned in 3 lines about 2 yard apart. The players can be in a 2 point stance or in their position stance, whichever you prefer. Align yourself to the side and slightly in front of the line of players. Toss the ball in front of them, in the middle, to the side, it doesn’t matter. Once the ball is in the air, it’s a fight to the finish for those 3 players. Don’t sound the end of play whistle until at least 2-3 seconds AFTER it appears one player has secured the ball. As we all know it can get pretty ugly under the pile and almost anything goes there. Kids need to get used to fighting it out and that includes what happens under the pile.

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Coach

Attitude and Approach to Loose Balls

If you want your team to be a team that protects the football, it has to be something you emphasize at every single practice. Ball security is not something you talk about on game days it’s something you make a part of your football teams culture. The first thing to do is make any ball that ever hits the ground in practice other than an incomplete pass a LIVE BALL. Anytime that ball hits the ground, everyone in the vicinity should be attempting a safe recovery and fighting it out for the football.

Too often I see youth teams practicing where a running back puts the ball on the ground and just shrugs his shoulders and jogs back to pick the ball up. You have to create a sense of urgency anytime the ball is on the ground in any type drill. This will not only make your defenders better, it will improve how well your backs protect the ball when they are on offense. You can add a “strip” component to almost any drill if you get a little creative. Once your kids see how important getting possession of the ball is and feel confident in their ability to protect the football, your turnovers are going to decrease significantly.

Ball Switching

Ball Switching can be an additional method to cut down on turnovers. Ball switching is when a runner moves the ball from one arm to the other so that the ball is on the outside and away from prospective tacklers. Say the runner is running an isolation play and he has the ball in his right arm, but the play ends up breaking to the left and now most of the defenders are to the right of the runner. If the runner switches the ball to his left arm, he will have a higher probability of the ball not being contacted by a defender. Note that ball switching should only be done in the open field and it must be fluid as to not interrupt the players stride or speed.

If the goal is to improve ball security while maintaining speed, this is a skill that has to be practiced. This is also an advanced drill that many won’t be able to implement early on. To develop this skill first start with a standing static player. The runner just takes the ball from his right arm, takes it across the body to the other arm. The ball should slide across the chest and the receiving arm should come over the top of the arm handing off. The ball is not tossed or transferred away from the body.

Cut and Switch Drill

The next progression to develop ball switching skills is the cut and switch drill. Have the runner take a handoff, pitch or direct snap, seat the ball and run straight ahead to a cone. Just before he reaches the cone, he drops his hips, plants his outside foot and runs at a 45 31 degree angle in the opposite direction. Set cones out at the 45 degree angle about 10- 15 yards from the middle cone. As always burst from the cut, switch the ball, touch the cone and run back to the starting point dropping the ball at the coaches feet. As the kids get more proficient at ball switching you can add a coach along that 45 degree path to swat at the ball. The coaching points: high and tight, drop hips, plant outside foot, burst on the cut, ball transferred at chest close to the body, no ball swinging and always 4 points of contact.

Goal- To teach proper ball switching. Station a coach at a cone 5 yards in front of the Running Back. Have the runner take a handoff, pitch or direct snap, seat the ball And run straight ahead to the cone. Just before he reaches the cone, he drops his hips, plants his inside foot and runs at a 45 degree angle in the direction the coach points. Set cones out at the 45 degree angle about 10-15 yards from the middle cone. As always burst from the cut, switch the ball, touch the cone and run back to the starting point dropping the ball at the coaches feet. As the kids get more proficient at ball switching you can add a coach along that 45 degree path to swat at the ball. The coaching points: high and tight, drop hips, plant inside foot, burst on the cut, ball transferred at chest close to the body, other hand coming over the top of the body, no arm swinging and always 4 points of contact.

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Z Cones Drill

The Z Cones Drill is very similar to the Bag Lateral drill with the exception that there are longer distances to cover and the angles are steeper. Set 4 cones up about 10 yards apart and at about 45 degree angles to each other. The goal is to get to the cone as quickly as possible, lower your hips coming to nearly a complete stop and run as tightly as you can around the cone, turn and burst to the next cone and repeat until you get to the last cone, touch the last cone and sprint back to the starting point. To add football skills development to the drill start with a handoff, pitch or direct snap and add a coach at an edge swatting at the football. The players change the ball to the outside arm at every edge.

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Ball security is something that must be emphasized all year and should always be part of your every day drills on offensive days. Don’t be one of those guys who sends an athletic running back to high school who can’t be trusted with the ball. Protecting the ball has to be ingrained into a players DNA from the very beginning. Because players who choose not to protect the football end up riding the pines.

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Chapter 4

Blocking

Every truly good running back blocks well and takes pride in his blocking. In many youth offenses, the running backs have the most important blocking jobs on many plays. Whether it be kick-out blocks, seal blocks, open field blocks, isolation blocks or even pass blocks, the running backs blocking ability is key in youth football. In order for a player to have the potential to block well, they must get competent with their technique, alignments, assignment and attitude with blocking.

Blocking is Attitude

Some youth running backs are somehow confused as to how important blocking is, not who blocks for them, but how they block. In 2012 I had a rookie 8 year old player who was pretty strong and aggressive fail miserably at a sumo evaluation drill. His dad coached for one of my older teams and I mentioned it to him. Well it turned out that his boy had purposely tanked the sumo drill because he thought if he did well in the drill, that he would be designated as a lineman.

Youth players need to understand that in order to be a complete running back, a team player and a starter, that they must choose to block well. Yes I said choose. If a player is athletic enough to be considered for a starting position at one of your running back spots, he has the potential to be a strong blocker. The only thing that would hold him back from fulfilling this potential is if he chose not to.

To block well, one first has to have the attitude that blocking is important to the success of my team AND to my quantity of playing time. Attitude is by far the most important determinant of success when it comes to blocking, not only from choosing to initiate the contact, but to maintaining the contact to the echo of the whistle.

Once the player chooses he will block, then he needs to develop the second layer of his attitude. Now it is his turn to be the hammer, not the nail. It is his turn to be the attacker and be physical with the defense. Too many youth players have the attitude that if you are an attacking physical player, you should be playing defense. You can choose to have that same physical attitude on offense as well.

As a coach instill this level of physicality with your players. Encourage them to take defenders to the ground and to block to the echo of the whistle on every play. Get as excited about a crushing block as you do about a long run or a completed pass. If you use a video tool like Hudl, highlight big blocks with the spotlight or highlighting feature. I’ve had good success giving out “pancake” helmet decals to those players who have excellent 35 to the ground blocks. One season we only gave out stickers for one thing: pancake blocks. So it didn’t matter how may touchdowns you scored or interceptions you got, your helmet was either full or empty depending on how well you blocked.

Rules

Note that the rules for how a running back can block differs from what maybe you as a player were allowed to do and they also vary according to level of play and even the state you are in. If you are in Texas or Massachusetts your base rulebook is NCAA, the college rules. If you are in the other 48 states you are playing by NFHS rules, the National Federation of High Schools rule book.

So what you see on television on Saturdays and Sundays isn’t always how you are allowed to play. That means your coaches, players and even parents need to be educated on what is and isn’t allowed at the youth level in your league. Want to make a referee really mad and lose 100% of his respect? Argue with him about something where you are using an NFL rulebook, while he is using the appropriate High School level rule book that applies to your state.

In the 48 states that make up the NFHS territory, running backs can not block below the waist. In NFHS only those players who are aligned on the line of scrimmage from the tackle to tackle spot are allowed to block below the waist. In order for a block below the waist to be legal: Both players must be lined up in the free-blocking zone at the snap and on the line of scrimmage. The free-blocking zone is defined as 3 yards on either side of the line of scrimmage and 4 yards either side of the ball. 2. The contact/block must occur in the free-blocking zone. 3. The ball must still be in the free-blocking zone.

Understand though, that this rule also applies to the defense. Another common example of an illegal block below the waist is when running backs, who line up in the backfield, are “cut” by defenders on sweeps or on roll-out passes. This is clearly a violation of the blocking- below-the-waist rule because it occurs by a player who was not originally on the line of scrimmage and occurs outside the free-blocking zone. Remember, players on the line of scrimmage and in the free-blocking zone at the time of the snap can legally block below the waist, but only if the free-blocking zone still exists because the ball has not left the zone. The rule applies equally to the offense and the defense. So if someone is cutting your iso blockers, kickout blockers or lead blockers, that is a clear violation of this rule.

For those playing by NCAA rules, your running backs have a little more freedom. Blocking below the waist is legal except on scrimmage plays in the following instances: Wide receivers more than seven yards from the center at the snap of the ball can block below the waist only against a player facing him or toward the nearest sideline. Running backs/receivers in the backfield and outside the tackle box (the area five yards on either side of the center) or players in motion can block below the waist only on players facing them or toward the nearest sideline. Players on the line of scrimmage 36 within seven yards of the center are still allowed to block below the waist anywhere on the field. The purpose of the change is to take away blocking below the waist against unsuspecting defenders. So under NCAA rules your tight running backs can block below the waist against anyone anywhere on the field, but your outside guys can’t block anyone to their inside below the waist.

In any event in any state your running backs can’t block anyone who is already engaged by another offensive player below the waist. Conversely your running back can’t engage another player below the waist who is already being blocked by someone above the waist. This is the very dangerous high/low block that is correctly referred to as a chop block. A cut block or crab block is not a chop block, you have to have both a high and a low player for a “chop” block to occur. A lot of people get this wrong, including the

high paid but poorly informed talking heads you see on Saturday s and Sundays on television. Your referees will get this one right though, it is a point of emphasis and something you must cover with your players right along with not blocking in the back, holding etc

Holding is one of those few penalties that gives some latitude to the referees. Contrary to popular belief holding is still not legal in any rulebook, however many referees use a different standard than the rules imply. Yes everyone can use their hands now but the hands must be in advance of the elbow and be inside the frame of the opponent’s body. The hands have to be below the shoulders of the opponent, by rule the palms are supposed to be open. The rules still clearly state that “the hands shall not be used to grasp, pull or encircle in any way that illegally impedes or illegally obstructs an opponent.”

In reality, referees allow blockers to grab cloth and the breastplate of the shoulder pads. Once the defender gets free of the inside frame of the blocker, then if the blocker is still attached and using those hands outside the frame, the blocker is “guilty” of what most referees designate as holding. The real net is, if your blocker is holding and that holding is outside the frame or visibly significantly impedes a defender that has gained some separation, your blocker will often times be cited for holding. At the youth level in some of the less competitive leagues, some referees won’t even bother calling holding unless it directly affects the play.

What many youth coaches will do so as to not get into gray areas is have their players shoulder block and not use hands. Others might shoulder block and teach hands to finish 37 but no holding, grabbing of cloth or breast plate grasping. You have to go with what you feel is right for your team and what you can teach. I use a combination of shoulders and hands, but I won’t let my players hold onto anything. For us, the rules are the rules, no matter if referees choose to call the penalty correctly every time or not.

Blocking Basics

Many youth coaches have running backs who don’t block well, because they don’t emphasize it enough and because they don’t focus on the right aspects of blocking. Players block with their feet, that is by far the critical success factor once the player decides he will choose to block. Getting in the correct position to make the block will determine if that block is successful or not.

Just like tackling, blocking has to happen in a toe to toe relationship with the defender. If a block is attempted from a distance of say 2 feet, it would be necessary to extend the body to make contact. That extension would mean bending at the waist, which would in turn lower the impact point and in most cases and lower the head as well. It is nearly impossible to get any hip roll out of this type of block as well, the feet have too much distance to make up to follow and the blocker usually ends up on the ground. A block attempted from distance has little power and little chance for success.

On the other hand, if the toes of the blocker are nearly on the toes of the defender you have a chance. In order to make contact at the designated contact point which is shoulders at the nipples, which is the lower part of the defenders shoulder pad, the hips must drop, which means your feet must be nearly toe to toe. When the hips drop, that gives us leverage and power as well as almost guarantees hip roll after contact. The lowered hips also allow the higher aiming point and for the head to remain safely up rather than down. As contact is made, the head slides to the armpit and out of the way. How much you use the hands and how you run your feet will depend on your preferences as well as the type of block.

Splatter Blocking Drills

Splatter drills are a great way to work on blocking technique and explosiveness without taking players to the ground. It is the way we prefer to slowly introduce full contact to our players. It is something we learned from Hugh Wyatt, a pioneer in the Double Wing world. It can be done with both blocking and tackling. It is always the last progression before we go to full live contact. It also is a very close simulation to an iso or kickout block.

The drill is simple, lay out 3-4 long blocking dummies side to side to create a landing pad. Make sure and have a dad or coach there to have his foot bracing the pads so they don’t come apart. Next have a player stand up with his heels up against the pad holding a shield in front of him. He is to not provide resistance, but let the blocker/tackler take him into the pad. Line up your blockers/tacklers 5 yards away in the appropriate stance. 38

Make sure and have a coach standing behind the landing pad to make sure the dummies don’t come apart and are pushed back together after each rep.

The Progression

1) Have blocker walk up and freeze on the dummy/shield making sure he has the right footwork, foot placement (toes of the defender), pad placement (just under the breastplate of the defender, body lean and head placement just to the side of the defender with the head up.

2) Same as above but run up and freeze on the dummy shield holder.

3) Full speed, taking shield holder into the mat, with blocker landing on top of the shield holder. Rolling the hips upward upon contact and accelerating through the contact is key.

Do not rotate the shield holder every time, it takes too long. Have a coach help him up every time and rotate the shield holder after 10-12 reps. It’s best to have players in a horizontal line so they can see those that are doing it well. Make sure and have a coach at the back of the landing pads to make sure the dummies don’t come apart.’

The Punch

The punch must be taught and perfected to pass block and stalk block effectively. Step with the inside foot first, bringing the hands to the breastplate as you bring the hips upwards to gain leverage underneath the defensive player. Strike with the palms, release and reset to strike again. Do this first with the offensive player in a stance against a tall bag and then with a defensive player standing upright and passive. Next move to offensive player in a stance and the defensive player in a stance, coming out passive. Then go live using cadence to start the drill. You can also start this drill from the kneeling position and do as a group as well, until you get to the live portion.

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Defense

Offense

Defense

Mirror Drill

The next step in teaching pass and stalk blocking to your running backs is teaching them to maintain inside leverage while staying with the defender. Have defenders go side to side with your offensive linemen using their hands to keep separation with the defender using short two handed shoves to the chest, elbows in, butts are low, while keeping their head up, feet chopping and in a wide base. Your goal here is to stay in front of the defender and not get out-flanked.

The players do not make shoulder contact until the defender makes his move and crosses the imaginary line of scrimmage. Once the defender makes his move, you want your offensive linemen to maintain shoulder contact, move his feet and run the defender out of the play as far as you can. In this blocking drill you are emphasizing the feet, making sure the offensive lineman is not getting outflanked by using short choppy steps and lowering the hips.

Offense

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Mirror and Go Drill The next step is the Mirror and Go Drill. The players do not make body contact until the defender makes his move and crosses the imaginary line of scrimmage. Both players start just like the Mirror Drill, across from each other with the defender sliding from side to side as the blocker maintains inside leverage and executes punches with his hands. Once the defender feels he has the offensive player outflanked, he makes his move. You want your running back to then make and maintain shoulder contact, move his feet and run the defender out of the play as far as you can. In this blocking drill you are emphasizing the feet, making sure the offensive lineman is not getting outflanked by using short choppy steps and lowering the hips.

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Stalk Swim Contact Drill

This simple one on one stalk defeat drill is often times part of our offensive segments, where our Receivers are working on their stalk blocking. This gives you a chance to work on your stalk block destruction at the same time.

Have a defender align about 3-4 yards across from the running back. The defender gets into a good stance and works the backpedal until the Receiver slows down and lowers his hips to stalk. The defender uses his gather step and accelerate towards the line of scrimmage, attack the outside rib cage with the swim move and move past the offensive player to the line of scrimmage.

The running back approaches the defender under control, slows down and lowers his hips once the cushion between him and the defender has narrowed to 2 yards or less. The running back will then chop his feet to maintain inside leverage like he did in the mirror drill all the while using his punch technique to shield the defender. Once the defender declares and makes a move to one side of the offensive player to make a play toward the line of scrimmage, the running back engages the defender with his outside foot splitting 41 the defender, so to maintain inside leverage. The blocker then engages with a shoulder , widens and runes the feet and moves the defender in that same direction, but along a different angle.

Oklahoma The Oklahoma drill is an oldie but a goodie that has lasted the test of time. Set up an running back against a linebacker in-between 2 cones set about 3 yards apart. The coach is standing behind the defender and he motions which way he wants the offensive player to move the defender. A running back is stationed behind the up running back. On the cadence the full speed, full contact drill is started. The defender uses his shrug, swim or rips moves to try and destroy the block. The goal is to drive the defensive player away from the point of attack and put him on his back. Blow a whistle once the tackle has been made or 6 seconds have passed .

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Three Level Oklahoma Drill

This is a drill you can do later in the season after you have a good number of players proficient at open field, isolation and stalk blocking. Set up three groups of players at a starting point, then spaced 7 and 15 yards from the starting point. The first group will consist of Linemen and Nose Tackles, the second group will be Defensive Ends and Linebackers, the last group are Defensive Backs.

Set up a “funnel” with cones so the beginning part of your drill is bounded at about 3 yards, the middle of the drill at about 7 yards wide and the back of the drill about 12 yards. Set up a boundary with cones so it looks like a funnel. Now line up a pair of evenly matched Defensive Linemen or Nose Tackles face to face at the starting point of the drill. At the second line of the drill at 7 yards have a pair of evenly matched Linebackers about 3 yards apart. At the last line of the defense set up two evenly matched Defensive Backs about 5 yards apart. Align a “running back” behind the starting line. On the whistle the defensive player of each of the three groups must try to beat the block of the player across from them and try to make the tackle on the ball-carrier. Encourage gang tackling and playing to the whistle. On subsequent reps rotate the players within each group to ensure reasonable matchups.

This allows you to get seven players involved at one time in a blocking and tackling drill while giving the head coach a chance to see who can make plays on defense. This is always one of the drills the players love to do the most. You can also put anyone in carrying the ball on this drill which is always popular with the linemen.

3 Level Oklahoma

Open Field Blocking

Open field blocking is an advanced skill many youth football players struggle with. The keys to open field blocking are:

Don’t go for the kill shot
Keep your feet in front of the defender
Don’t get outflanked, mirror the defender by running your feet, footwork is key 43

Bend at the knees, not waist and do not get over extended
Break down and approach under control only making contact when your toes are at the defenders toes, splitting the defenders legs with your outside foot so you maintain inside leverage
Maintain contact with hands rather than shoulders, but most importantly impede the defenders progress to the play
Widen and move the feet with short choppy steps on contact
Keep the head up
Don’t hold

The Diamond Drill

Use this drill to help with developing open field blocking skills as well as pass blocking: Set up a diamond with cones with the diamond borders being 10 yards apart. At the top of the diamond put a defender holding a blocking shield. On the opposite tip put a blocker, Place a rag or scrimmage vest in the midpoint of the diamond. On the whistle the defender must run around one of the two horizontal points of the diamond, where you have placed cones about 5 yards from the center of the diamond.

The goal is to get to the center and pick up the rag. The blocker must attack the defender and keep him away from grabbing the rag. The key points are the blocker must not get outflanked; he needs to run his feet and maintain a low center of gravity. The defender can use any type of move he wants to after going around the pylon at the horizontal tip of the diamond. Blow the play dead after 5 seconds if the defender can’t grab the rag

Diamond Drill

Defender With Shield

10 yards

Blocker

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Keep Away Drill

Another good open field blocking and stalk blocking drill is the keep away drill. Put a blocker and a ball carrier in a circle that’s circumference is about 6 yards. Put a defender at one edge of the circle and the offensive players at the other. The defender has 5 seconds to fight off the blocker and make the tackle. The offensive blockers goal is to lower his hips, make contact and keep the defender from making the tackle.

The entire circle can be used by the running back to keep away from the defender. Call out the time loudly, 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi etc and blow the whistle on 5. You can make this a team challenge contest, dividing the group into teams with the first team getting to 10 wins, the losing team has to do 5 pushups or something like that. This is a good drill to work on open field blocking, foot placement, maintaining low hips, good pad level and on defense, shedding blocks and open field tackling.

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Pass Blocking

Pass blocking is the last concept to teach your running backs. For the most part pass blocking is a lot like stalk blocking and uses many of the base building blocks used for the stalk like the punch, mirror and mirror and go. It does depend what type of pass blocking you are going to use based on the coaches approach on the play. For a play action pass, the running back may be asked to just use their base run blocking technique to give the defense a stronger run read or he may ask that the back give a strong run read but not try for the kill shot type block and break down at the last possible moment and pass block. Or he may ask that the back max protect or block the edge defender using his pass blocking technique.

As in the stalk block, the approach is with low hips, striking with the hands and mirroring the defender using short slide steps making sure to maintain inside leverage. Once the defender declares to a side, shoulder contact is made, the feet are run and you run the defender off of the pursuit path he intended to take. To drill pass blocking, use your stalk block base drills of punch, mirror and mirror and go.

Pass Block Live Drill

While punch, mirror and mirror and go are the building blocks for pass blocking skill development. You will need to go live. Set up 2 backs and 2 defenders as shown below with a coach set as a drop back stationary Quarterback at about 7 yards. Put about 4 yards of separation between the defensive player and your backs. On the cadence this is a full speed, get to the Quarterback drill for 7 seconds.

Allow your running backs to use their hands when pass blocking. Do not let them be passive on their punches, they must lower their hips and strike with their entire body, not just play patty cake with the palms of their hands. If they play tall and patty cake, they are going to get pancaked. Once that defender makes a move to one side or the other, your backs gets a shoulder on the defender, you are not looking for separation once shoulder contact has been made. As the defensive player is moving away from the play and your running back can “ride him out” you do not try and separate.

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Log Choice Drill

The following drills are also in another section. These are both blocking and run read drills. Running backs in many different types of offenses are required to kick out the end man on the line of scrimmage. In the Single Wing, the off-tackle power play with a kick-out block by the Blocking Back is a bread and butter play for us. Some coaches will let their running backs read the edge defender as to if he should be blocked inside or outside with the following running back reading the blockers actions and responding accordingly.

The Log Choice Drill helps your players develop this skill. In youth football Defensive Ends align and use various approaches from: boxing to the deepest back and forcing everything inside, crashing and spilling plays deeper into the backfield or even boxing and squeezing.

Start this drill by placing your backfield in whatever your base offensive alignment is. If the ball is received by your running back via direct snap, snap it to him. If it is handed off or pitched by a Quarterback, set that up. Align a Defensive End with a shield at the spot he would normally align and have him come in a straight line off an imaginary Tight End, setting himself up for an easy kick-out block by the lead blocker. Make sure the lead blocker aims for the inside shoulder of the defender and makes contact with his outside shoulder, head to the inside, hips lowered, head up and pad level just under the nipples. Start with very obvious reads either a box technique or a crash/spill technique. In either case the back carrying the football is reading the blocking back and once he decides to cut it up inside, he lowers his hips, plants that outside foot and gets upfield to a cone set 10 yards away.

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Once your players have a good sense of the box technique, show them what a crash/spill technique looks like. In this rep the Defensive Ends takes a very shallow path directly into the backfield aiming at the near hip of the back. The lead back in this case will log block the defender to the inside by aiming his inside shoulder to the outside number of the defender, making contact again below the nipples, head on the outside and swinging 48 his hips to the outside to drive the defender towards the inside. The back carrying the football runs to the outside in this rep to a cone 10 yard away. As the players gain more and more skill at reading their blocks, take the shield away and go live. Then vary the reads making them less and less obvious.

Blocking must be stressed, taught and repped on your offensive practice days. Blocking must be emphasized and rewarded in order for your team to lead the league in scoring. Show me a team that rewards touchdowns and compare that to a team that truly values and rewards blocking, the blocking team will almost always score significantly more than the “touchdowns” are king team. Don’t send your running backs to high school without them developing an appreciation and love for blocking. If you do that, you are doing them all a favor and the high school coaches are going to love you.

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Chapter 5

Transferring and Seating the Football

Seating the Football

No matter what type of offense you plan on running the running back is going to have to learn how to receive and seat the football. Depending on your offense you may teach direct snaps, handoffs or pitches.

The Handoff

Teaching the handoff is a good idea once you have your backs separated from the linemen and know who they are going to be. The first step in teaching the handoff is hand and arm placement. The top arm is placed across the body with the hand right at the nipples, fingers extended, thumb pointing downwards. This is the clamp arm and hand. The elbow is open just in front of the body and slightly above the nipple. The lower arm, is the shelf arm, it is held loosely against the body, elbow in with the thumb pointed out. Demonstrate this to the boys and have them align and show you their handoff seating stance.

When a player passes on the right side of the Quarterback, his right arm is going to be on the bottom and his left arm is going to be on top. If he passes the Quarterback on the left side, his left arm is going to be on the bottom and his right arm is going to be on top. He always has to have that inside arm up. If he doesn’t, there won’t be a pocket to deposit the ball into and that closed shoulder will often times result in botched ball exchanges. An easy acronym is I like TD, or ITD. ITD helps the running back remember that the inside thumb is always pointed down.

To practice the base hands off place the Quarterback as the coach just in front and slightly to one side of a column of running backs. The backs hands should be on top of the player’s thigh pads. Have a Quarterback coach give a, handoff on a walk to the running back with the back concentrating on having the right palm turned up and left palm turned down, with a “pocket” created from their upper -chest to just above the belt buckle. Before starting, require all the players to demonstrate the proper pocket and have with arms loosely pressed against their own body. When the back receives the ball he only clamps down after the ball is firmly in place. He clamps with the top arm, the bottom or shelf arm stays in the same place. The ball carrier should not be reaching for 50 the ball and not switch the ball during this drill. After the walk though, go to full speed. Then do the same progression to the other side. So every back gets used to taking handoffs with both arms in the down position.

Base Handoff Drill

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Handoff Squeeze Drill

Another progression for this drill is adding the squeeze with two tall bags. The bags are set just a foot apart with coaches or players holding the bags. So getting through requires a player to come in fast, with low hips, consistent leg drive and with lowered shoulder pads. The squeeze should be set up 2 yards after the player has received the ball in order for him to gain his bearings and lower his hips for contact. Place a cone 10 yards beyond the squeeze to get a burst and speed development reps out of the drill. To complete the drill the running back must make it through the squeeze, sprint to the cone, drop his hips, touch the cone and sprint back. As your backs learn the ball-switch you can tell them to switch as they make their way back to the staring point. To save time use multiple balls and have the backs place the balls at your feet so you don’t have to wait for them to complete every drill. 51

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Handoff Eyes Right Drill

When a back is taking a handoff they should not be looking toward the Quarterback. It’s the Quarterbacks job to get the ball into the runners stomach and get to the mesh point. Backs should not have to They should be looking toward the point of attack and defenders. A good way to train your backs to keep their eyes off the Quarterback and toward the point of attack is the Eyes Right Drill. Just add a coach about 3 yards from the line of scrimmage and have him flash up fingers as the back approaches the mesh with the Quarter4back. The running back then shouts out the number of fingers the coach has displayed. Once the kids get that down, add the squeeze back into the drill. If you run inside counters or off-tackle adjust the angle and direction of the drill to mimic those type plays.

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Pitches

Many youth offenses use the pitch either for off-tackle runs, sweeps or even quick pith or orbit style motion sweeps. Whatever approach you use for pitches, the back will need to be trained to receive the pitch.

Base Pitch Drill

The key points on the pitch are: initial step, creating a target, hand placement and seating the football. Start in a standard 2 point stance and move the away foot over the near foot to the side you are running, this step is parallel to the line of scrimmage and could be referred to as a cross over step. Flash the hands at nipple level about 6 inches away from the body. The thumbs are touching with index fingers almost touching to create an almost diamond shaped pocket with the palms facing toward the line of scrimmage. Locate the Quarterback and the ball immediately so you can pick up the ball with your eyes as soon as possible. Look the ball all the way into your hands and then seat the ball into your outside arm, fingers over tip, pressed against forearm, pressed into crook of the elbow and tight to the ribs. Too many youth players either fail to catch the pitch or do a poor job of safely seating the ball into the proper location, these problems end up resulting in turnovers. 53

When doing the base pitch drill, start with doing it on the jog and looking the ball all the way in and then making sure your players seat the ball properly by looking the ball all the way into the crook of the elbow. You want your players to over do this, to actually have their heads tiled toward the crook of the elbow to over emphasize seating the ball properly. Eventually go full speed and go away from tilting the head all the way down when seating the ball. Once the players get the hang of it, put a cone out 10 yards from the line of scrimmage and make add a speed development component to the drill, making sure they lower themselves to touch the cone and run back at a full sprint.

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Pitch and Slap Drill

Pitch and slap is a progression from the Pitch Drill where you are coaching up ball security. Just station a coach along any point of the pitch path on the outside and have him slap at the football. The back should be running at full speed using good running form, opposite arm thrusting at 90’s and not crossing over his body. When he approaches the possible ball threat, the back puts his open hand over the top of the ball. When he clears he uses that open arm to regain momentum with good running form, runs to the cone, touches it and sprints back to the starting point.

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Pitch and Squeeze Drill Another progression off of the Base Pitch Drill. Just add a squeeze component about 1 yard past an imaginary line of scrimmage. Make sure your players burst into, lower their hips and shoulder pads, keep their feet churning and then burst past the squeeze. Use whatever style pitches you are using in your offense be it the short off tackle toss, traditional sweep, quick pitch sweep or orbit/rocket sweep etc.

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Snap Progression Drill

For those teams like mine which use a lot of direct snaps in our offense, running backs need to be trained how to take and seat the ball. Don’t take this skill for granted, jus tlike anything else it has to be taught and repped. The coach is on one knee facing the players and snapping the ball off the ground with one hand to the backs. Place a cone 8 yards to each side of an imaginary line of scrimmage, put about 1 yard between parallel cones on the line of scrimmage to give the back a target to run through.

Hold the back accountable to a perfect stance. In my version of the Single Wing his thighs are parallel to the ground and he has his hands open, pinky’s together, fingertips touching the top of the ground, ready to receive the snap. Before the snap, make sure to demonstrate the distance you want the ball carrier from the center and mark it with a cone. Review the stance if need by for us we you want the player to be low, back straight, bent at the knees, head up. We want the players palms facing the line of scrimmage, his hands outstretched, and pinkies together, fingertips touching the ground. Before you add the snap, show the players review how you want the ball seated. You want them to pull the ball towards their body and then move the ball to the right arm, one point of the ball in the seat of their elbow, ball pressed tightly along their rib cage and inside of the forearm and the other ball point being covered over the top with their right hand. Pass a ball around to each player and have them show you what the ball will look like when it is “seated” in their right arm.

Have coach “snap” the ball to the player by facing the player and on one knee and tossing the ball underhanded from the ground to the height of about the top of the player’s palms. Make sure every stance is perfect, if it isn’t, explain why and send the player to the back of the line, proper distance and stance is key to the deception of the Single Wing. We have the coach call the cadence of “shift down, ready set go”. Just like we did with the pitch, the player has to watch the ball all the way into his hands. You should visibly see his head tilt downward as the player watches the ball go from the Centers hands to his hands. Have player tuck ball properly with end of the ball covered by the right hand and other end in the seat of the right arm. Have player just “seat” the ball and freeze. Look for proper ball protection, tucked in elbow, hand over point and with the head tilted down, looking at the football. Have player run the ball back to coach.

After everyone has gotten “seat the ball” down, have then run between the cones to the right, through the second set of cones 10 yards behind them. Tell the players to accelerate to full speed and run through, not to, the cones, lower their butts so stop and touch the final cone and accelerate to the coach at full speed and place the ball at his feet. If you don’t have cones as targets, use shell jerseys or something else, kids need landmarks. 56

Make sure to explain the drill, show the kids by demonstrating it yourself and then choose an experienced player to demonstrate it for the group. We do not coach a cross over step, many good coaches do. When finished, start up again with freezing on “seating the ball” in the left arm. When that is completed have the players run the left end as described above.

Use this drill to not teach the cadence, backfield stance, ball control and to develop speed as well as using it as a player evaluation tool early in your season.

10 Yards

------3 yards ------5 yards------—

Direct Snap End Run Gauntlet

Same as above but put 2 rows of players facing each other past the set of cones. As the runner runs through the gauntlet, let the gauntlet players swipe at the ball without moving their feet. Make sure the back covers the ball with two hands as he goes into traffic. The running back needs to explode through the traffic with knees high, body low and leaning forward with his legs pumping. As a final progression, add two coaches with shield dummies or tall dummies at the end of the gauntlet, facing each other. Have the coaches pop the dummies together as the player emerges from the gauntlet and into their little trap. The player should run low, shoulders square, keeping his legs churning and explode through the coach’s contact. This drill usually shows you who your best backs are: as a head coach you need to see the players running this one. This is a drill we let everyone run, even our lineman. It shows you who your right guard and power tackle are going to be and gives everyone a chance to touch the ball as you evaluate who goes where, the first few days of practice.

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Chapter 6

Making People Miss

Good running backs make people miss. They do it in a variety of way, through field vision, reading blocks well, creating space, running through people, running over people and running around people. This chapter is going to focus on the running through and running around part of skill development.

When you talk to running backs always impress it upon them that they are the hitter, not the hittee. They are the hammer, not the nail. They need to know that is there job to initiate contact and that the contact has to be at a point where they have the advantage. That advantage comes by having more speed built up at the contact point than the defender and by maintaining better leverage. You get better leverage by attacking defenders with your shoulder lower than the defenders shoulder and by maintaining leg drive. While this may come a bit natural for some of your players, most will require that you teach them the skills through a variety of drills and progressions. There are also some tried and true miss making techniques that can be taught to about any youth running back.

Running in Traffic

Every good running back runs well in traffic. At the very young age groups in youth football, you may have a very fast running back dominate with his speed against poorly coached teams. But once they get to about age 9 and face teams with reasonable coaching, speed alone won’t get it done for them. As the player ages up, the windows for separation become narrower and narrower. The goal is to get upfield, vertical as quickly as possible with as little cross field and wide sweeping cuts as possible. This can be accomplished by running through people and creating crevices of mini space. You can teach your players how to do both.

Chariot Drill

To help players understand the correct body lean and power needed to break tackles the chariot drill is a great drill. Just take your towel that was used for the towel game and slip it around the waist of a running back. Have another back grab both ends of he the towel and “ride” the running back from behind for 10 yards. The running back will carry a football high and tight, with good body lean driving the balls of his feet into the ground in short and quick bursts of steps, dragging his chariot rider 10 yards to the finishing cone.

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Gauntlet Drill

The Gauntlet Dill all by itself is a classic ball security and stripping drill that also is a great tool for evaluating running backs. It may also be one of the simplest ways to teach running backs to press their way through traffic. Even the classic version will help train your players to lower their hips, drop their shoulder pads, accelerate into contact and keep the feet churning. The Gauntlet Force drill just takes it up a notch. Start with every player in the gauntlet holding either a shield or tall bag. Then have the players in the gauntlet space about 1 yard across from each other. When the ball carrier passes, have them lower their shoulder and use their arms to impede the runner from passing without taking the runner to the ground.

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Super Squeeze

Super Squeeze is just adding another level of squeeze to the squeeze drill. Make sure to put about 5 yards of space between the 2 levels of squeeze to the back has to regain his balance and re accelerate into second level. Make sure the tall bags are almost touching as they stand parallel to one another held by a player or dad. Always have a cone set 10 yards past the end of the last squeeze so the running back has to regain his balance and burst to the distant cone, lower his hips, touch the cone and sprint back to the starting point. The back may have to put his off hand on the ground to steady himself after he makes it past the squeeze.

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The keys are you must have enough acceleration and body lean to make it past the squeeze without falling flat on your face as you emerge out of the other side. Lowered hips and keeping the head over the toes, but not past them will help in that regard.

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Closed Squeeze

Closed Squeeze simulates when a runner is stood up in traffic with nowhere to go. With a 2 coaches or 2 players holding tall bags standing up with no room between them the running back starts the drill with a ball in his arm, with his shoulder pads snugged up against the 2 tall bags. He should be leaning forward slightly and with his head UP. On the signal he starts running his legs to try and drive the bags forward. The focus is on applying consistent hard force to the ground to develop eventual separation from the defender. Mistakenly some coaches ask players to get their knees up without emphasizing that speed and power are primarily a function of applying force to the ground, not up with the knees. In this drill the bag holders are firmly behind their bags providing strong resistance.

On the command, after about 4-5 seconds the bag holders part the bags and the runner sprints to a cone 10 yards upfield, drops his hips, touches the cone and sprints back to the starting point, dropping the ball at the coaches feet. The coaching points are: lowered hips, body lean, head up, short powerful steps and second hand over the ball. Once the bags have been parted the runner may go to one hand on the ball and he may have to put his open hand down to keep his balance. You could add someone swatting at the ball in traffic or to the midpoint of the cone as well.

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Pick a Shoulder

Running Backs need to be able to run though tacklers when there are in tight traffic. One of the easier ways to run through a defender is to only take on part of his force. We call this “picking a shoulder.” When a back picks a shoulder, he chooses to run though half of the defender, not all of the defender making it much easier to do. In this drill the back is aligned head up with a defender holding a blocking shield about 7 yards away. After taking a handoff or a pitch, the back chooses a defenders shoulder to attack. The backs attack point is from the middle of the breastplate just under the nipples through the ribcage. The back attacks with the shoulder to that side making contact with his shoulder to just outside his neck. Bending at the knees, not the waist the blow should be made as his near foot almost comes into contact with the defenders toes. This is a near foot, near shoulder attack or same foot same shoulder attack.

What you are looking for is foot to foot, pad level, attack point, head up, lowered hips and acceleration through contact. Have the backs alternate which shoulder they attack. As always you can add a speed development and burst component to this drill by placing a cone 10 yards behind the defender and have the back burst to the cone, drop his hips, touch the cone and sprint back to the starting point.

Staying In Bounds

At the youth level you don’t want your runners to go out of bounds unless you are trying to save time on the clock. There simply isn’t any yardage to be gained once a player steps out of bounds. There are 3 methods of escape once you are hemmed in on the sidelines, you plant your foot in the ground and cut inside to where there is more open real estate, you execute a stiff arm or you run through the tackler. 61

The Forearm Drill

An effective way to run through a player who has the sidelines shut off and is coming at you from an angle is with a mini rip forearm. To execute this you runner must first come into the contact point low, his shoulders have to be lower than the defenders shoulders. Once contact is made the arm to the side of the tackler rips his near forearm under the shoulder of the defender and through his armpit. To get the momentum and velocity, the running back may have to wind the arm back a notch, anticipating throwing the forearm as the defender approaches. An easy way to teach this technique is just by using a hand shield and a coach using the Forearm Swing Drill.

Forearm Swing Drill

The player and the coach who has a handshield are 7 yards apart. The coach holds the handshield horizontally so the runner has a chance to rip under the pad. The runner after taking a handoff, pitch or direct snap approaches the inside edge of the coach at full speed with the ball in his outside arm. The runner makes contact with the shield with the outer tip of his shoulder pad at a point that simulates getting under the defenders shoulder pad, that means the runner has to drop his hips, and get a little shoulder lean going into contact. As he makes contact, he rips his forearm under the shield and accelerates to a point 10 yards past the coach.

Sideline Choice Drill

The Sideline Choice Drill gives the runner the choice to either plant his foot and get upfield or use his forearm rip move to escape the defender. In this drill you set up an imaginary sidelines and then have a coach with a handshield held horizontally, at a point just 2 yards inside the sidelines about 10 yards after receiving the ball. As the runner approaches the contact point he can either plant that outside foot and cut inside the coach or he can choose to use his forearm rip move to defeat the defender. The coaching points 62 are: ball high and tight, lowered hips into contact, head up and either drop those hips and cut into the open field or use your forearm rip to evade. As always burst an additional 10 yards, touch the cone and sprint back to the end of the line.

The Stiff Arm

The stiff arm has always been a very effective tackle evasion technique that seemed to go out of fashion and then return back to favor in the last 10 years. It is a skill that can be developed and taught to about any youth player. When using the stiff arm there are 2 primary threats where it makes sense to use, when defenders making a tackle attempt at the knees or below away from the football and when defenders are approaching high and to from the side away from the football.

In either case the stiff arm will be executed in a similar fashion. The hand just come out in an aggressive punch using the open palm to ward off the defender. For those tackles at the knees or below, the aiming point is the top of the helmet. For those high tackles from the side, the aiming point is the front center of the shoulder pads, right where they are tied or clamped together in the middle.

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Stiff Arm Base Drill

Start with a static tall bag just 1 yard in front of the ball carrier to his inside. The back has the ball secured properly in his outside arm. Using the above the waist technique the back thrusts the palm of his inside hand at the height that would simulate hitting the middle of the upper chest of that player. Step and violently thrust, step back and do it again.

Stiff Arm Fit

This drill is just like the angle form tacking drill. Players are on the jog angling toward a midpoint about 10 yards away. When they reach the midpoint, the player with the football executes a high stiff arm fit on the defender. While the runner thrusts the palm of the hand out violently, he fits on the defender in the middle upper chest. Switch and work both sides, both arms.

Stiff Arm Choice

The Stiff Arm Choice drill will help a player develop the skill to ward off both types of stiff arm friendly tackle attempts. The back approaches a coach at full speed with the ball 64 in his right hand. At the 7 yard mark the back cuts to the right at 45 degrees passing in front of a coach holding a tall bag. The coach tosses the bag toward the player, either straight up and down or lowered the long way. The high throw mimics the high tackle, the low throw the knees or below tackle. In both cases the back uses his stiff arm technique to strike the bag with his palm. Make sure and coach the back when he is stiff arming the low tackler not to raise his ball arm. He needs to remain high and tight and not let the ball come away from his body where another trailing tackler can cause a turnover.

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Stiff Arm Sideline Drill

This drill will help your players develop their stiff arming skills to try and stay inbounds. Station 2 players with tall bags about 15 yards up an imaginary sideline set up with a boundary of cones. After taking a direct snap, handoff or pitch have the back angle up the imaginary sidelines with the ball in his outside arm, use his stiff arm technique to stay inbounds against the simulated tacklers- the tall bags.

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Spin Move

The spin move is another running back move that was very popular, disappeared when Chuck Foreman retired from the NFL and has slowly gained popularity again over the last 10 years. The spin move is both a tackle evasion movement as well as a tackle 65 breaking movement. It can be used to put distance between the runner and the tackler or to help the back break tackles in tight quarters.

The evasion spin move is used by setting up the tackler by getting his momentum to go away from the direction the back is going to run the ball. If the back is in a heads up position with the defender he needs to pick a shoulder as an aiming point and take on just half the defender. When a back picks a shoulder, he chooses to run though half of the defender, not all of the defender making it much easier to do.

In this drill the back is aligned head up with a defender holding a blocking shield about 7 yards away. After taking a handoff or a pitch, the back chooses a defenders shoulder to attack. He must then come to balance by slowing down and lowering his hips. The back attacks the outside shoulder of the opposite way he wants to run with a jab step. Then he steps with the other foot towards that same shoulder while spinning away from the tackler. Sometimes shoulder contact is made, sometimes it isn’t. If contact is make target is just below the nipples of the defender with the edge of your shoulder pads. Bending at the knees, not the waist the blow should be made as his near foot almost comes into contact with the defenders toes. This is a near foot, near shoulder attack or same foot same shoulder attack. In this diagram the back is attacking with his right shoulder and spinning counterclockwise. If he decided to attack the other shoulder he would be attacking with his left shoulder and spinning clockwise.

What you are looking for is foot to foot, pad level, attack point, head up, lowered hips and acceleration into contact, then the back pivoting with the same near foot and quickly spinning away from force. In the below diagram the back would be pivoting sliding with his left foot, making contact with his right shoulder and escaping to his right.

Start this drill at about 1/3 speed until the backs have the footwork down well. Have the backs alternate which shoulder they attack. As always you can add a speed development and burst component to this drill by placing a cone 10 yards behind the defender and have the back burst to the cone, drop his hips, touch the cone and sprint back to the starting point. All backs need to be trained to accelerate or burst after they make any type of evasive move.

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Bucking Bronco Drill

Use the Bucking Bronco drill to teach and rep the spin move. Station 4 players with hand shields at 45 degree angles about 7 yards apart. Handoff, pitch or direct snap to a running back and have him use a spin move with contact against the shields. Using the technique described above, “set up” the tackler by running hard to the outside of the shield, lower the hips and make contact with the shield with the opposite shoulder of the direction being run, spin and accelerate to the next shield and repeat until the back has spun past all 4 shields. Once the runners have gotten a good feel for the drill have the players with shields give the runner a good shove with the shield. This will help the backs develop balance off of the spin move.

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Fall Push Up

One way to be tackled is simply not to fall down. Many times a player will lose his footing, lose his balance or be knocked off his footing in space. In these cases the runner can use his free hand to put down on the ground, regain his balance and stay off the ground. Set up 4 cones about 7 yards apart. The player starts out taking a hand off, pitch or direct snap from the coach on a jog and puts his non ball carrying palm on the ground next to each cone. He uses his arm to push away from the ground. He will bend his knees and lower his hips as he makes his approach on those final 2 steps. This will never be a drill the player can do at full speed, but one you can speed up to about 70% speed once the players get a comfort level. Make sure the player maintains ball security and does not raise the call up and away from his body when he plants his palm on the ground.

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Cut Move Evasion Drills

While not every running back on your youth football team is going to be a prolific open field or cut evasion move runner, you can use a variety of drills to make sure he stays focused and runs at full speed as well as uses the field and his opponent’s momentum against them. We use a variety of open field tackling drills, which are also open field evasion drills to help train our running backs, receivers, linebackers and defensive back. You have to be careful to use some of these drills only after your players have mastered the form tackle and angle form tackling and have done well in the three-slot challenge tackling drill. This is a good drill to put in a tackling circuit where only the more advanced players are allowed to participate.

The key coaching points are that the runner must lower his hips as he approaches the cut. He must put pressure on the instep of his outside foot to make sharp cuts. In most cases he will want to “hug cut” his exit, by angling just enough to escape the nearest tackler, while not opening him up to multiple tacklers by running horizontal across the field. You want your runners to hug as tightly to the near defender as possible, while creating enough distance for him to miss. The keys are lower the hips, pressure the instep of the outside foot away from where you are cutting, get parallel, then get vertical, upfield as quickly as possible.

Starter Cut Drill

The starter cut drill will help the player develop his ability to cut efficiently and correctly. Use 2 tall bags set flush on the ground at a T intersection about 5 yards away from your line of runners. The coach is at the back of the T intersection with 2 cones about 10 yards behind the T, 1 on both sides.

When running this drill for the first time, let the player have the ball and start from a resting 2 point stance. Once he has gotten the hang of it the runner takes a handoff, pitch or direct snap and runs straight ahead at the coach. The runner approaches at half speed, drops his hips, pressures the instep of the foot away from where he is cutting, plants that foot, steps horizontal with the other foot and plants that foot in the ground with pressure 69 on the instep while the trailing foot now gets upfield at an angle. He then sprints to a cone 10 yards away, touches it and sprints back to the starting point.

The player chooses which side he wants to cut to. Once the players have gone through this drill a few times at half speed, let them go to full speed. The key coaching points are drop the hips to come to balance, run as fast as what’s right for you to make the cut, press off the insteps and get upfield as quickly as possible, while staying high and tight with the ball.

Ball Avoid Drill

The ball avoid drill will help the player develop his ability to cut and cut in the correct direction. A coach holds one of those large exercise balls about 10 yards directly in front of the ball carrier. The runner takes a handoff, pitch or direct snap and runs straight ahead at the coach. The coach rolls the ball toward the runner aiming at either his shoulders. The runner approaches at half speed, drops his hips, pressures the instep of the foot away from where he is cutting, plants that foot, steps horizontal with the other foot and plants that foot in the ground with pressure on the instep while the trailing foot now gets upfield at an angle. He then sprints to a cone 10 yards away, touches it and sprints back to the starting point.

The runner cuts away from the shoulder the ball is closest to. Once the players have gone through this drill a few times at half speed, roll the ball faster and ask the players to make the cut as close to the ball as possible without it touching them.

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T Cut Drill

The L cut drill is still a basic cut drill that will help the player develop his ability to cut efficiently and correctly. Use 4 tall bags set flush on the ground at an L intersections about 5 yards away from your line of runners. Set cone 5 yards in front of the backs and 10 yards behind the last bag to give your players landmarks.

The runner takes a handoff, pitch or direct snap and runs straight ahead at the coach. The runner approaches at half speed, drops his hips, pressures the instep of the foot away from where he is cutting, plants that foot, steps horizontal with the other foot and plants that foot in the ground with pressure on the instep while the trailing foot now gets upfield at an angle. He then sprints to the next L bag in his path which is about 7 yards away. Again he will slow to balance, drop his hips, plant his right foot with pressure on the instep, sliding his left foot horizontally, sticking the left in the ground with pressure on the instep and taking the trailing foot upfield.

The key coaching points are drop the hips to come to balance, run as fast as what’s right for you to make the cut, press off the insteps and get upfield as quickly as possible, while staying high and tight with the ball.

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Use 4 tall bags or cones set flush on the ground at T intersections about 5 yards away from your line of runners. Set cone 5 yards in front of the backs and 10 yards behind the last bag to give your players landmarks. The runner takes a handoff, pitch or direct snap and runs straight ahead at the coach. The runner approaches at half speed, drops his hips, pressures the instep of the foot away from where he is cutting, plants that foot, steps horizontal with the other foot and plants that foot in the ground with pressure on the instep while the trailing foot now gets upfield at an angle. He then sprints to the next L bag in his path which is about 5 yards away. Again he will slow to balance, drop his hips, plant his right foot with pressure on the instep, sliding his left foot horizontally, sticking the left in the ground with pressure on the instep and taking the trailing foot upfield. Once they get the hang of it, go full speed.

Mirror Run Slide Drill

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This drill will help the running back determine when he can cut up the field or beat the defender to the edge. Face 2 players toward each other with about a 5 yard cushion between them. The running back runs parallel to that imaginary line of scrimmage and between 2 cones about 20 yards apart. The defender starts in a slide technique and quickly moves to a run. The defender wants to run at a speed where he is just a step behind the runner.

Once the defender gets out in front of the runner, the runner cuts back against the grain and runs up the field at the inside shoulder of the defender. If the defender does not keep up with the runner, the runner can take the ball upfield at an angle toward the outside shoulder of the defender. The runner determines at what point he wants to take the ball upfield to the inside or outside shoulder of the defender. This is a full speed drill up to the point of the tackle, we make it a fit. You can do that or make it a full speed to the ground tackling drill if you like.

One Move Drill

The One Move Drill is a simple open field evasion and open field tackling drill. Let the offensive back make one move. You are working on helping your Running Back learn how to decide if he should continue running in a straight line or cut back against the grain. You often time see this type of move made in the open field or near the sidelines. At the same time you are teaching your defender to not over pursue and keeping his head up and legs underneath him, many coaches call this “squaring up” or “breaking down”. Line 2 groups of players in lines about 10 yards apart set up with cones. We start by snapping, handing off or pitching to a ball carrier and having him run toward the far cone line, making a cut to run upfield along the far cone line and then either accelerating or cutting back if the defender has over overrun the play. Make sure to emphasize the defender not to make his move and contact until his toes are on top of the ball carriers toes.

The defender must approach the offensive player on the go call taking short choppy steps as he lowers his hips and stays under control as he moves forward. He does not wait for the runner and tackle him at the boundary of the box. When the defender is in position to make his cut he must come under control, drop his hips and take his angle to the ballcarrier. Again make sure the tackler is using his base tackle coaching points, toes on toes, shoulder to bottom of shoulder pads, head up and to the side.

As the season progresses you may want to modify this drill and allow the ball carrier to make multiple moves.

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10 yard Box Drill

Another simple open field evasion and tackling drill can be set up in a 10x10 yard square marked out by pylons. At one end is the tackler, on the other is the ball carrier. Allow the ball carrier to make as many moves as he wants with the goal of scoring by crossing the defenders end of the box. The only restriction is time, use three seconds as the limit and count it off loudly for both to hear.

Make sure the tackler is on the attack, approaching the runner under control, do not let him sit and wait for the ball carrier to make his moves. As the tackler is approaching the ballcarrier, once the 3 yard barrier has been broken, the tackler needs to lower his hips, stay under control and buzz his feet as the ballcarrier makes a move to either side.

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30 Yard Box Drill

The 30 Yard Box is very similar to the 10 yard box, but you get a lot more players involved in the drill. Set up a 30 yard by 10 yard box with cones every 10 yards to denote the boundaries. At the 10, 20 and 30 yard lines you have defenders set up. The defender can not cross his line and attack the runner until has started his approach.

Every time the runner is tackled, he gets up and starts against the next player in line until he crosses the 30 yard line. Start another runner after the first runner has started on the defender set on the 20. Once all the tacklers have gone through 3 attempts, rotate them out for other players. Same coaching points and rules for the 10 yard box apply. Always make sure the runner has a ball and include a handoff, pitch or direct snap ball seat to the drill if you like.

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Chapter 7

Coaching the Burst

Many youth running backs do not understand how important it is or even how to burst into the handoff or pitch mesh and into contact. Most also don’t know how to burst once they are in the open field. While it may be instinctive to a handful of youth players, it won’t be to most of them. It’s up to you to teach them.

Burst Add On

The easiest way to coach bursting is adding a burst component to nearly every drill you do. Many youth coaches have running back drills that end with contact. You want to teach your backs to burst at the end of any type of contact. Being able to accelerate out of and away from contact is one of the primary skills any good running back possesses. Simply put a cone out 10-15 yards from the end of every drill you do. The back must accelerate to that cone, touch it and run back to the starting point of the drill. This adds just a second or two to every rep, while adding a burst teaching muscle memory, conditioning and speed development component to every rep you do. This is so much more effective than doing gassers at the end of practice or even doing straight speed development work.

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Accelerating to the Point of Attack

When your running backs aren’t running full speed into contact or the mesh point for handoffs or pitches, it may be time to run a “Power Hour” drill. You can do it with a skeleton crew of your backs and a few coaches. Put your backs in the base set with cones set up to designate your offensive linemen. If you are a direct snap team make sure to put your starting Center at snapper.

Put a player or coach over the Center or in his inside gap with a tall bag. Put a coach with a shield at Defensive End spot, another at Outside linebacker and another at Corner. Run an off tackle power play with all backs running full speed, fitting on their respective defenders. Start with the defenders standing still or the defensive end boxing and giving easy reads, later in the drill have them move within a reasonable range and try to put the shield on the runner. Later yet add a “chaser” to the drill by stationing a tackler right behind the back getting the football. As soon as the cadence count is called release the chaser from behind the running back and let him try to make the tackle. This will force 78

your backs to run full speed right at the hole rather than bowing his path or “reading” the hole. It gets ugly and messy off tackle or on iso plays and holes often times do not open up until the last moment. The last thing you need is a back who hesitates or runs outside the kickout block or tries to bust everything outside. You want your backs to be proficient at hitting that point of attack at full force.

Again make sure your backs are anticipating the snap count, getting out on the g of go, not false stepping, stepping with their power foot and rising up slowly. You continue to enforce the arm pump (not across the body) both prior to and after ball acquisition with the arm not carrying the football.

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When backs run with “wreckless abandon” at full speed, most of the time good things are going to happen. Do this for about 30 minutes straight at a clip of one rep every 15-20 seconds or so. No one will ever run you down from the weakside edge or from behind again behind the line of scrimmage and you will see fewer holes closed prior to the back arriving

Getting Caught From Behind

We all have running backs that get caught from behind. While in most cases the reason they get caught is because they are being chased down by players with more speed, in some cases that’s not the reason why. Have you ever had a player who was fast but always seemed to get caught from behind? Have you had kids who would tear it up in 79 sprints or race type drills, only to look like they were in slow motion when they got into the open field?

It happens and in those cases it is sometimes a form or mental lapse. When a back finally breaks into the open and the only thing between him and the end zone is a sea of green grass, often times he hears that crowd cheering and he loses his concentration and loses speed.

Burst Race

As the good coaches that we are, our job is to figure out how to help those kind of kids get over the hump. The Burst Race Drill is a good one for that problem. Just align in your base formation with coaches, dads or players at the point of attack with shields. The blockers will fit on the bags. Run whatever play the struggling back usually runs. At about 10 yards from the line of scrimmage and near what would be the ending point of the run, place a defender, one of your faster ones. Then place a cone 20 yards toward what would be the endzone away from that defender. Run the play, once the runner has approached the defender and is nearly even with him, blow your whistle. At this point the runner and the defender are racing to the cone.

Make sure the back is maintaining ball security and is swinging his free hand. Some players do not take full advantage of the momentum they gain by a good arm swing. The hand does not come across the face, they pump up to the ear and down to the hip. The hand is not clenched. The runners focal point is not the end zone or cone, it is at an imaginary target on the ground 10 yards in front of him. His eyes should be staring toward the ground as he bears down on winning the race he is now in with another player

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Burst Chase

Burst chase is a variation of the Burst Race Drill. In the Chase, sound your whistle early and let your running back chase after the defender. Some players discover their true open field speed by chasing a faster player, not racing them.

Remember that much of what you are teaching is both muscle memory and mental training. While many feel that much of what a running back does comes naturally, you would be shocked at how many NFL players learned how to refine their running skills by doing drills just like these. Sure every great NFL running back has lots of natural ability, but your job as a youth coach isn’t to pray for NFL caliber running backs, it’s to coach up the ones you do have.

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Chapter 8

Building Football Speed and Quickness

Football speed and sprinting speed are two totally different things. Sprinting speed is how fast a player can cover a certain distance, 100, 200, 400 meters in a straight line. Football speed is how well a player can start, stop, accelerate, slow down, change direction and accelerate again. The latter is how the game of football is played. In a typical youth football game if you don’t count kickoffs and punts, there are just 2 plays per game that may require a player to run 40 yards or more. But on every offensive and defensive snap every player will be running for 5-10 yards, stopping, starting again, accelerating, changing directions and accelerating again. That is the type of speed we want to develop for our players.

Adding Speed Development

In youth football we have to be efficient with our practice time. Most of us don’t have the practice time the high school, college and NFL guys get. Our players don’t specialize on one position, they play offense, defense and special teams. Most of your kids have to be taught and drilled on the basic fundamentals. We simply don’t have the practice time to devote to doing a lot of football speed development.

What all of us can do is add a speed development component to some of the things we are already doing or add some speed development movements that also build fundamental football skills. Consider putting a cone 10-15 yards at the end of most of the drills you do and have the player sprint to the cone, drop his ships, touch the cone and sprint back to the starting point of the drill. Get creative and try and kill 2-3 birds with the same stone. You may want to consider doing some speed development type activity in the off-season if your situation allows for it.

Pro Agility Races

Try and make competitions out of as many of your drills as possible. Kids love to compete and you want that, anything you can do to ignite the competitive juices in your kids is a good thing. It also makes practice more fun for the kids and you’re going to get better effort out of everyone if the drill is competitive.

Make something as simple as a pro agility type drill into a team relay race competition. The cones can be set anywhere you like, we like 5 yard separation. Do these with 82 teamsizes of 6 or less and make it interesting, the losing team has to do 5 pushups. You are looking for acceleration, dropped hips, good running form and high and tight ball security. Start without a ball, then add one. As an added twist have coaches be part of each team and have the coach from the opposing team try and slap the ball out of the hands of the other team. Any lost ball is an immediate loss for the team fumbling the football.

Ladders

There are literally hundreds of different ways to use ladders to improve football speed. Choose your favorite ones and then add some fundamental football skills development movements to those drills. In the below drill we combine a pitch, with a 1 or 2 foot per square speed development ladder drill along with a ball security drill (coaches slapping at the ball) and end with another speed development movement of a cone burst, drop and return sprint.

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Bag Laterals

Developing both forward and lateral speed in very small spaces will help your running backs when it comes to the real action they will see on the football field. Doing very short distance Z drills covering laterally will help them develop these types of skills. Set the bags in a column no further than 1 ½ yards away from each other and set a cone about 5 yards from the edge of the last bag. The goal is to get to the edge as quickly as possible, lower your hips and burst to the edge of the next bag. To add football skills development to the drill start with a handoff, pitch or direct snap and add a coach at an edge protecting the football. You could also have the players change the ball to the outside arm at every edge, or add it in later as the players master the base drill.

Z Cones Drill

The Z Cones Drill is very similar to the Bag Lateral drill with the exception that there are longer distances to cover and the angles are steeper. Set 4 cones up about 10 yards apart and at about 45 degree angles to each other. The goal is to get to the cone as quickly as possible, lower your hips coming to nearly a complete stop and touch the cone, turn and burst to the next cone and repeat until you get to the last cone, touch the last cone and sprint back to the starting point. To add football skills development to the drill start with a handoff, pitch or direct snap and add a coach at an edge protecting the football. You could also have the players change the ball to the outside arm at every edge, or add it in later as the players master the base drill

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Bag 1 Steps

Bag drills are like ladder drills, there are hundreds of ways to do them choose the ones you like best and add football skill development movements to them to get the most bang for your practice time. Start by setting 4 tall bags or half rounds in a column about 1 yard away from each other. Always use a cone to designate the starting and ending point. You can start this drill with a direct snap, handoff or pitch. Again you can do 1 steps or 2 steps between each bag, your preference. Add a squeeze component to the end with either tall bags or shields and of course end with a pro agility style touch the cone and sprint back. As always you can add a ball security component to the drill by stationing a coach along the way slapping or ripping the football.

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Lateral Bag Hops

This drill will help your players develop football speed via a plyometric jump type movement. Set the tall or half round bags in a row about 1 yard apart. The player faces coach and hops between the bags laterally. His feet should be tight, about 6 inches apart. His knees should be bent as he starts his jump and he should land softly on the balls of his feet, knees bent with feet just 6 inches apart. You could start the drill with a direct snap or pitch and coach could be in a position to slap or rip the ball. End the drill with a cone set 10 yards away from the last dummy and have the player sprint drop his hips, touch the top of the cone and sprint back to the starting point.

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Lateral Long Bag Hops

This is a one bag drill that helps develop football speed using a plyometric movement. The bag it set the long way with a cone at about 10 yards from the end of the bag. The player faces coach and hops between the bags laterally. His feet should be tight, about 6 inches apart. His knees should be bent as he starts his jump and he should land softly on the balls of his feet, knees bent with feet just 6 inches apart. It should take most players about 4 hops to get to the end of a typical tall bag. End the drill with a cone set 10 yards away from the last dummy and have the player sprint drop his hips, touch the top of the cone and sprint back to the starting point. It’s a good idea to have a coach working ball security on this drill.

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Long Bag Hop and Squeeze

An easy variation to the Long Bag Hop Drill is to add a squeeze component to it. Again, spice your drills up and add some variety to keep the kids interest. All you are doing is adding in the good old squeeze and of course ending with a pro agility style cone touch and sprint.

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Back and Forward Hops

This is a one bag drill that helps develop football speed using a plyometric movement. The bag it set the horizontal to the line of scrimmage with a cone at about 10 yards from the end of the bag. The player faces coach and hops between the bags forward and back. His feet should be tight, about 6 inches apart. His knees should be bent as he starts his jump and he should land softly on the balls of his feet, knees bent with feet just 6 inches apart. It should take most players about 4 hops to get to the end of a typical tall bag. End the drill with a cone set 10 yards away from the last dummy and have the player sprint drop his hips, touch the top of the cone and sprint back to the starting point. It’s a good idea to have a coach working ball security on this drill from the front side.

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Football speed can be developed to degree. Always keep in mind your time constraints and add speed development to drills where the time impact will be minimal. In most cases reasonable add-ons will be worth the time invested.

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Chapter 9

Developing Field Vision and Reading Skills

Field vision is the skill of being able to see the field and defenders and use that information to make efficient decisions to avoid contact while gaining positive yards. No matter of the running back is a “jitterbug” style runner or even a slasher, he can gain significantly more yardage if he makes good decisions to get to daylight.

When a player gets good with field vision, they often talk about the game slowing down for them. If you have ever been ran the football you understand what I am talking about. When most youth football players start carrying the ball, they just run as fast as they can in the direction the play is designed and hope for the best. They may outrun some defenders or run through tackles, but you usually don’t see them making a lot of people miss or run the play to the most efficient yard making parts of the field. While many feel this is a skill one is born with, it is a skill that can be improved upon and developed over time. You can through repetition and the proper training take what that running back sees as a 180 rpm fast play video to something that resembles a movie playing a tad slower than normal speed.

Discipline Training and Field Vision

One of the best running backs I’ve ever coached had fairly good field vision when we first got him. Back in 2003 I coached our age 9-10 select team. We chose from about 120 kids to put the team together, with all the rest going to play on “B” teams. The selected players played in a select league and the “B” players played in a “B” league. I chose a running back with average size and above average speed who had scored 8 touchdowns the previous year out of the “I” formation on a 3-8 team. I liked his attitude, his quickness and his willingness to be coached.

While he wouldn’t be able to beat most of our backs in a 40 yard race, he had excellent explosiveness, low pad level and he ran very determined. He also liked to bump everything outside. This is a common problem with many youth backs and can have some success against weaker competition or “B” type teams- like where this player 90 played the previous year. But with average speed and playing in a select league, that approach wasn’t going to work very well. Richard had to be trained to run the ball inside.

It was something we really concentrated on, talked to him and drilled. He ran hundreds of tap, log choice and mirror run slide drills. While Richard was a natural at Tailback for us, I put him at Fullback the first half of the season in an effort to help develop his inside running skills. In his first game playing for me we played the defending league champions on a very hot late August Sunday. There was a huge crowd on hand for this game as this opponent had beaten us quite handily the previous year and they traveled well, with easily over 500 people in the stands. Everyone was keyed up for this game, there were lots of friends, relatives and even just locals that wanted to see some good football being played.

After receiving the opening kickoff and returning the ball to our own 40 yard line. On the much anticipated first play from scrimmage, we ran Richard inside where there was an ok seam that would have been good for a 5-6 yard gain. However Richard wasn’t having any of that, he bounced the play outside the kickout block and ran about 50 yards to the other teams 10 yard line. Had he not gotten caught from behind we would have scored on our very first play from scrimmage. The crowd and sidelines went wild. Everyone but me had a big smile on their faces.

I took Richard out and calmly asked him what he did wrong, right away he responded that he went outside the kickout block. He knew he had done something incorrect by choice so I sat him on offense until halftime. The worst thing you can do for a player is if he does something wrong and it still has a positive net result is to let it slide. We talked and he let me know it wouldn’t happen again. Richard came off the bench in the second half to help us to a 38-6 win. That season he scored 31 of our 66 touchdowns as we went 12-0, won the league championship game 46-12 and won an outstate tournament.

I only had Richard for one season, so I’m not taking any credit for his development. His senior year in high school he led the state in rushing with over 1,700 yards playing in the largest classification in the state. He went on to the Army All American game and the University of Nebraska in spite of a 40 yard dash time that scared away almost all every Division I school in the nation. His uncanny field vision, quickness and determination made him very difficult to bring down for a kid weighing just 175 lbs.

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Mirror Run Slide Drill

One of the first skills a running back needs to develop is understanding when it makes sense to get north and south and when to keep going east and west. The Mirror Run Slide Drill can help develop that skill. They key is understanding where the defender is in comparison to the running back and his speed. If the defender is even or slightly ahead of the back on this drill he should cut the ball up the field as the defenders momentum will take him past the play. If the defender is playing too far behind, then its time to widen the play out and get to the edge. This is a drill that will take some time to do well as the back will need time to figure out how his speed rates against his peers.

Start the 2 players facing each other about 5 yards apart. The defender is in a Linebacker stance and starts in a slide technique mode. The running back runs parallel to the imaginary line of scrimmage which is marked by cones. As the back gains speed, the Linebacker may move to his run/slide/run technique in an effort not to be beaten to the edge. Once the back sees he can beat the defender to the edge, he takes it. If the runner sees that the defender is in front of him and has overrun the play, he cuts it inside. The cuts need to be tight and explosive. When the ball is taken up the field the angles are 90 or greater, no taking the ball against the grain. In real games, that’s where most of the defenders are going to be.

Log Choice Drill

The Log Choice Drill will help your runner to read blocks as well as your lead blocker how to read defenders. Running backs in many different types of offenses are required to kick out the end man on the line of scrimmage. In the Single Wing, the off-tackle power play with a kick-out block by the Blocking Back is a bread and butter play for us. Some coaches will let their running backs read the edge defender as to if he should be blocked inside or outside with the following running back reading the blockers actions and responding accordingly. 92

The Log Choice Drill helps your players develop this skill. In youth football Defensive Ends align and use various approaches from: boxing to the deepest back and forcing everything inside, crashing and spilling plays deeper into the backfield or even boxing and squeezing.

Start this drill by placing your backfield in whatever your base offensive alignment is. If the ball is received by your running back via direct snap, snap it to him. If it is handed off or pitched by a Quarterback, set that up. Align a Defensive End with a shield at the spot he would normally align and have him come in a straight line off an imaginary Tight End, setting himself up for an easy kick-out block by the lead blocker. Make sure the lead blocker aims for the inside shoulder of the defender and makes contact with his outside shoulder, head to the inside, hips lowered, head up and pad level just under the nipples. Start with very obvious reads either a box technique or a crash/spill technique. In either case the back carrying the football is reading the blocking back and once he decides to cut it up inside, he lowers his hips, plants that outside foot and gets upfield to a cone set 10 yards away. Once your players have a good sense of the box technique, show them what a crash/spill technique looks like. In this rep the Defensive Ends takes a very shallow path directly into the backfield aiming at the near hip of the back. The lead back in this case will log block the defender to the inside by aiming his inside shoulder to the outside number of the defender, making contact again below the nipples, head on the outside and swinging his hips to the outside to drive the defender towards the inside. The back carrying the football runs to the outside in this rep to a cone 10 yard away.

As the players gain more and more skill at reading their blocks, take the shield away and go live. Then vary the reads making them less and less obvious.

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Big Ball Sweep Decide Drill

The ball decide drill will help your player with his decision making skills when faced with a situation where he has to decide whether to try and outrun a defender or plant a foot and cut inside. For this drill you will need one of those large inflatable exercise balls. The coach sets up as an outside linebacker about 9 yards wide of the runner and about 3 yards off an imaginary line of scrimmage. Using a handoff or pitch to receive the ball, the runner takes a parallel sweep path and looks to make a move off a ball rolled by the coach. If the ball is too slow to get to cut the runners path off, the runner breaks the play to the outside getting upfield as quickly as he can once he clears the rolling ball. If the rolling ball gets to the runner prior to him being able to complete his outside sweep path or the ball is rolling so fast that the runner thinks he won’t be able to outrun it, the runner puts his outside foot in the ground and gets upfield.

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Place cones about 10 yards in back of the line of scrimmage at points where the running back would finish off his runs if he cuts either inside or outside. As always the back must burst to a cone, drop his hips, touch the cone, sprint back to the starting point and drop the ball at the feet of the coach. The coaching points are: secure the ball, eyes up, full speed to the decision point, outside arm swinging at 90 degrees and eyes on the target. If the runner goes outside he gets upfield as quickly as he clears the ball, if he goes inside he lowers his hips, plants his outside foot and bursts to the downfield cone.

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Point Decide

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Step Decide

Step Decide is almost identical to Point Decide, except now the coach is stepping in the direction he wants the back to run opposite of. Again make the step early when first starting the drill and make them at the last second as the kids get the hang of the drill. For bigger kids you may want to use a hand shield for protection.

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Sideline Decide

Another place young running backs can use their jump cutting skills is near the sidelines or in a situation where a defender is in a position to cut the running back off. Quite often this happens near the sidelines where the defender either has superior speed or they have a good angle.

Set up the drill as pictured below with the back taking a pitch, handoff or direct snap and running right down an imaginary sidelines set up with cones. About 10 yards from the line of scrimmage station a coach or player with a handshield about 7 yards from the sidelines. On the command the runner receives the ball and sprints up the sidelines. On a secondary command the ‘tackler” runs towards the cut off point. The runner must decide if he can make it past the tackler by outrunning him straight up the sidelines or if it makes better sense to let the tackler overrun him and jump cut behind him.

Start out wit signaling the secondary command in early so everyone has to do a jump cut. Then vary it from early to late, the tackler makes the “tackle” by hitting the runner with the handshield. The coaching points are: secure ball in outside arm, swing inside arm, sprint into and through point of attack and head up. If the cutback is the correct choice, then lower hips, plant outside foot and jump cut parallel, making sure to get upfield as soon as possible. As always have a cone 10 yards upfield to coach up the burst, lower hips touch the cone and sprint back to the starting point.

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Turn Decide

Most running plays are going to require your running backs to make multiple split second decisions on where he is going to run the football. The Turn Decide Drill will help him develop that skill. Set up 3 coaches or dads in a column about 5 yards apart. The drill can be started with a handoff, pitch or direct snap to a running back who runs right at the first coach or dad. The coach turns to face one sideline or the other. The running back runs to the backside of the direction the coach turned. If you are teaching jump cuts, coach up the dropping of the hips and step with the outside foot. The player comes off the behind of the coach as tight as he can and accelerates vertical looking for the next coach. That coach turns to one sideline or the other and the player again cuts opposite of the direction the coach is facing and gets upfield.

Mix up the direction the coaches face so that there isn’t always a cut, sometimes the player runs straight, again based on running to the backside of the direction the coach is facing. End the drill with a 10 yard sprint to a cone and back.

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Chapter 101010

Fakes

Fakes are a very important if you want to consistently score a lot of points in youth football. Fakes often times take 1,2 or even 3 potential defenders completely away from a play. In other cases, they influence a defensive player slightly enough to allow an offensive lineman to get a shoulder on him. In some cases just getting a defender to lean the wrong way for an instant will be enough to make a play go. Lastly, good fakes make a defense play slow. When you can make a defense hesitate or play slow, that is a huge advantage for the offense. The offense always knows where the play is going.

If you don’t believe me, go to youtube and put in the search terms Bellevue Washington Football High School or even my teams at winningyouthfootball.com You will probably have to toggle back and forth or put the film on slow motion to figure out who has the football. Bellevue runs the Wing T and my kids run the Single Wing, it’s really tough to see who has the ball, even when you know the offense.

Part of the problem is it is series based football, the shell and peanut game. The other problem is Bellevue and my team carry out their fakes really well. We’ve had numerous games where the referee lost the ball or even whistled the ball dead because one of our fakers was tackled. We’ve had games where the player with the ball has tapped a referee on the back with his back turned to the runner in the end zone, to let the referee know he had scored. Here they use all High School referee crews, we’re talking experienced crews. Just like magic, we want you to watch what the magician wants you to watch while the trick is being executed off to the side.

Accountability and Commitment

Like blocking, fakes are a choice a running back chooses to make or chooses not to make. It doesn’t take any athletic ability at all to make a good fake, what it takes is commitment and follow through. How well a team fakes is solely a function of the standard a coach sets. Are you going to require your team to fake well or not? If you do, they will fake well. If you don’t cheer on the kids who fake well and play the kids who choose not to fake well, your team won’t fake well. So it ends up being your choice as to if your team is going to be a team that fakes well or poorly.

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Teaching the Fake

There is technique involved in faking, it isn’t just “run the play out 20 yards” and be done with it. There are a variety of ways to fake, the most deceptive and effective one probably comes from the Michigan High School ranks and the layered handoff approach those Dead T teams run. While amazingly effective, we don’t teach it because you lose some of that space speed when the other arm isn’t involved in the run. Our players won’t move onto a High School that uses this approach, so for both reasons we haven’t adopted it. It’s a great approach and probably very deceptive, but not a fit for us.

An approach that works well in the A and B gaps is for the faker to just have both hands in the stomach in his handoff position, but clamped down tight over an imaginary ball. For off-tackle or sweep fakes, this isn’t as believable. What does work well is putting the outside hand balled up in a fist and in the palm of the inside hand, keeping the elbows in and dipping the inside shoulder some.

The second component to effective faking is BURSTING at the perceived exchange point. What the human eye is attracted to fast bursting movements. An effective faker bursts, a weak faker doesn’t run hard and many times just jog or go through the motions.

The third part is the eyes, the faker must keep his eyes on his line of attack. Lots of linebackers and defensive backs read helmets, that means those eyes need to be pointed toward where he is running rather than peeking back at where the ball is really at.

The last component is carrying the fake out. The standard is what you make of it, those Dead T high school teams from Michigan run all their plays out 20 yards. You would see 2 backs faking 20 yards down the field on every single snap. I’ve done 10,15 and 20 yards, you set whatever standard makes sense for your team.

The accountability will come through in practice. When you are running plays out on air or fit and freeze or even live, put cones at the distance you are setting as the standard. If the standard is 15 yard, set the cones 15 yards from your line of scrimmage and require every back faking to get to 15 yard with his hands correct, shoulder dipped, bursting and with the eyes away from the play.

When you are analyzing your game film via Hudl, make sure and spotlight and highlight good fakes. I know one youth coach who gave out helmet stickers to any of his running backs who were tackled without the football. The stickers were little rabbits, a tribute to the slight of hand of magicians. 101

Chapter 11

Coaching Above the Shoulder Pads

Training above the shoulders might be the most important training you can give a young running back. What can we do as coaches to help him reach his full potential as a 9 year old, or 11 year old or 13 year old, while giving him the tools he is going to need to succeed if he chooses to play in high school or beyond? I’ve heard many a high school coach complain about running backs who were “stars” in youth football who completely washed out once they got to high school. Most of these high school coaches attributed those failures to attitude, coachability and fundamentals.

Once little Johnny is no longer the biggest, fastest or most athletic player on the team, he can’t get away with doing things that aren’t technically sound and still succeed. For many players, once they are no longer in the spotlight, no longer dominating and not getting all the carries, they fall apart. That goes back on his youth coach, we have to prepare our players so they can have success beyond the narrow playing fields of youth football.

How many times have you seen a running back pound his own chest and almost hear him say it’s all about me baby? How about the back that’s having a tough day and he’s yelling at his linemen to block someone? Have you seen them taunt another player or whine when they aren’t getting the ball enough? If you’ve said no to any of those questions you just haven’t been coaching youth football very long. Those things happen every weekend in every youth football league all across this great nation of ours. Kids are just copying what they see on their television sets from NFL and college football games. If you are ok with that then stop reading this and move on, if you aren’t a fan of that type of attitude and behavior you can help these players save themselves from being selfish and boorish.

How do you get players to play in an unselfish way? By teaching them. Football is not an individual sport like boxing, track or even wrestling. While a single player can impact the game, great teams are made up of like minded players focused on an end goal who play together and selflessly. Selfish teams may have a few nice days in the sun, but when they get pushed around and run into some adversity, they usually fall apart like a cheap card table with Charlie Weis sitting on top of it.

When I talk to high school football coaches about what they want to show up at their doors in the ninth grade, it’s kids who love playing the game, can block and tackle, are coachable and understand what playing on a team is all about. If you’ve allowed a selfish 102 monster to be created you haven’t done your player, your team or the high school out at all.

The first step is getting the players to know you care. We don’t have enough space in this book to show you exactly how to do that, again I refer you to the Developing Chemistry and Character Program at winningyouthfootball.com. Players today aren’t going to buy into what you are selling until they know you care about them.

Once you gain that trust it’s up to you to help those running backs understand what it means to be a good running back. Let them know what good running backs look like. They don’t know, all they see are the ESPN highlight runs, which are usually touchdowns. So in their minds, good running backs = touchdowns. They need to understand that the following are just as important: blocking, carrying out fakes, consistency, ball security, being a good teammate, pass catching and moving the chains. You do that during individual drills, in group and especially during team, when they are in front of their peers.

If you choose to get into long eloquent speeches in the middle of practice, expect to lose the kids. Their eyes are going to glass over and their minds are off in another place. What does work are lots of loud atta boys during practice, positive Hudl film comments and pats on the back on the way to practice parking lot for that great block or fake or ball security he had in last weeks game. A well timed “I’m proud of you” or handwritten note to the parents about how well their boy is progressing can go a long way.

Get excited every time you see one of your backs doing any of these things well. Yes, that means getting as excited about a player putting that second hand over the ball when he comes into contact as when he scores from 30 yards out. Players respond to positive reinforcement and when he only gets effusive praise when he scores touchdowns, that’s all he’s going to think is important. That goes for practice as much as in games.

Use your water break time wisely. You have to waste 4-5 minutes anyways, why not inject some above the shoulders training into those 2-3 water breaks every day?

Be Coachable

Being coachable means a player listens and trusts his coaches instruction above his own instincts. Being coachable means a player can absorb instruction and does not get upset with constructive criticism. A coachable player ACCEPTS coaching and even can get over the hump if criticism that was less than constructive is pointed in his direction. Coachability is one of the traits high school coaches most love getting from kids moving 103 up to their roster. Helping a player understand why it is in his best interest to listen to you can be one of your most important tasks.

Some youth players have come from environments where they have never been criticized. Some on the other hand may come from environments where they are unfairly criticized all the time. In either case, once you’ve established trust, players need to know that you care about them and that your criticisms aren’t meant to be personal. Players need to know we care about and love them no matter what they do on the field and any criticism is leveled only to help them become better players.

Attitude

It’s up to the coaching staff to create an environment where teamwork and selflessness is encouraged and rewarded. Running backs need to understand that the game isn’t about them, it’s all about the team. What they do helps the team reach it’s goals, but what they do is no different than an offensive linemen making his block, a defensive end making a tackle or a kicker making a PAT. A well coached team has 11 players all adding value on each snap. When you play well coached teams, all 11 of your players are going to have to execute well in order for your team to have success. If all 11 players are important to every play, then why should a single player be more important that another? If the goal is to play to potential with all 11 players, how can one player be more important than another?

When you score touchdowns, make sure YOU congratulate everyone on the line first, then the blocking backs and lastly the player that scored. The players follow your lead, they will value what you value and get excited about what you get excited about. If you value complete players and team, then show it with your actions and rewards.

If you want to instill those values into your team you have to create that type of team first environment. A simple way to do that is to have a designated Team Chemistry and Character Development plan. We use weekly character themes and awards that include a short story and a very short question and answer period of how that story relates to out football team. Weekly “foundation” awards are presented based on players exhibiting that weekly character theme. As you may have guessed, the themes are heavy on traits like; selflessness, teamwork, perseverance and maintaining a positive attitude. You can find out more on how to proactively creating that environment and the weekly lessons at www.winningyouthfootball.com click on the Developing Team Chemistry and Team Character program.

A running back must have a positive attitude if he is going to be successful over the long haul. Running backs ARE going to have plays where someone is going to miss their block and the end result is going to probably be a negative yardage play for the back. When this happens nothing positive is going to come from the running back getting upset at whoever missed his block. Let the backs know, that any discipline issues will be handled by the coaching staff, not by another player. Never tolerate a running back getting upset at or criticizing his blockers or team. Ask your backs, if you get mad and 104 talk down to your linemen, will that make them more motivated to block well for you or less motivated? It’s never a good idea to throw your blockers under the bus and let them know you won’t tolerate it as a coach.

After a Mistake

Every player on your team are going to make mistakes. How well they respond after they make a mistake, will determine what kind of player they end up being. Every player needs to understand that you expect perfection, but as long as they are giving 100% effort on every play you can live with the mistakes they make. That is you are ok with it, if they shake it off and concentrate on the next play. Every snap has its own unique history and is independent of the previous snap and unrelated the following snap. There will be great plays and not so great plays in every game, what separates the best from the rest is focusing on what you can do, which is nail the next play, rather than dwelling on the success of failure of the previous play.

Aggressiveness

Many running backs think of themselves as “skill players” who absorb punishment. That has to be completely turned upside down if they want to be a good running back. Your language, attitude and mindset has to be that your backs are the hammer and everyone else they play against are nails. Be physical, talk physical and add a physical element to as many drills as you can. These need not be full scale to the ground hitting components, much of what you want to do can be accomplished with shield and bags.

Reward physicality, get loud and excited when your players play physical. Use the right kind of language when running drills or talking to your players. A great way when doing indys or group work is to start the drill off with the command “attack”, attack lets the back know they are on the offensive. They are always the hammer, never the nail.

Teach your player how to attack with the leverage of lowered shoulders, speed into the point of attack, forearms, stiff arms, relentless leg drive and to the echo of the whistle blocking. Attitude has to be backed up with technique as well as positive reinforcement every time you see aggressiveness from your backs.

Durability

We always want to do our due diligence when it comes to injuries and especially concussions. But the facts are that most injuries in youth football are not serious, they are bumps, bruises and abrasions. These kinds of injuries happen all the time, especially to running backs. If an injury is not serious and is not a head injury, the running back needs to get off the ground and into the huddle or on the line of scrimmage as quickly as possible.

Youth football is a game of momentum and mental toughness. If your team sees your running backs springing right back up from tackles to continue play while the other team 105 experiences many stoppages of play for the normal scrapes and bumps, momentum and confidence will be on your side.

Scoring Touchdowns

When your team scores touchdowns, how do you react? Everyone is different and responds in a way that is congruent with their personality. Personally I don’t respond at all, we expect to score on every possession of every game, so scoring a touchdown unless it was some type of extraordinary play doesn’t mean much to me other than let’s get ready to execute the PAT and subsequent onside kick.

Running backs need to be taught how to respond after touchdowns. Many of them have only seen football on television, they don’t know what they are supposed to do. This is something you can practice prior to the first game. You can have some fun with it and maybe even buy a referee shirt and let one of the players or dads play referee for a drill.

You could do it on air, in fit and freeze or even do it live in a goal line scrimmage situation. Show the players the process you want them to go through once they score and why that process is important. Tell them to be inclusive when they score. It’s alright to be excited about touchdowns, but we don’t want them to hold the game up, act like they’ve never been in the end zone before or show up the other team.

In 2012 we had a family move here and sign their son up to play in our program. They had played for another program in a different city the previous year. The dad had to tell me he was shocked at how our parents responded during games. The previous year, their team was like most, they averaged about 2 touchdowns a game and finished 6-3. When they scored it was a big deal, the parents got really loud. On the other hand, our parents rarely got very loud at all when we scored. For our program my teams average in the high 30s. I have coached a number of teams that scored in excess of 80% of our possessions, we expect to score every possession. So when we do score it’s not that big a deal, hence the not so exuberant fans. The net is, if you as a coach expect to score every possession and don’t treat it like it is some kind of miracle that most likely won’t ever happen again, the kids will act that way too.

You also want them to start thinking about the next play, the all important point after. How many games are lost in youth football by teams that get all wound up when they score touchdowns and the point after attempt is an unimportant afterthought. It happens 106 all the time, every point scoring opportunity should be given the respect it deserves, it could be the difference in your season.

Tell your running backs that after they score to quickly place the ball in the hands of the referee and then either get to the sidelines to get water or if they are involved in the point after attempt, then to get back into the huddle immediately. Let the celebration commence after the point after attempt. After the point after attempt, have them go to the all of their blockers individually and give a fist bump, high five, something appropriate for the age group. Help your backs understand how important their blockers are and for them to offer them the proper thanks and respect after each score.

In the Clutch

Good running backs deliver in the clutch, when the pressure is on. The trick for you as their youth football coach is to train them and then create mini clutch situations in practice to simulate what they might see during a game. How many times have you seen a seemingly above average player come through when his team needed him most? There are kids out there who want the ball and there are another group of kids out there who would rather have the ball go to someone else.

When it gets down to simulating crunch time, you can do something like have your offense set up on the 5 yard line against a scout team defense of say 15 players. The setting is, if the offense can score in 1 play, then practice is over for the offense. They will get to play Hawaiian Rules football, while the losers will carry all the gear to the parking lot after doing 15 minutes of full field kick covers.

Get into the huddle with your player and let them know what is on the line, the game. Your team is down by 4 points and there is 1 second left to play in the game. The game is for the league title at your home stadium. They have to score in a single play in order to win the game and win the little mini game you’ve designed.

Now call the play and ask everyone to take a deep breath and hold it, then let it out slowly. Have them do that 5 times. Then have the players close their eyes and visualize scoring on that play in the stadium from the 5 yard line. Have them picture a perfect play and then mobbing the running back who just scored the winning touchdown. Run the play and let the offense celebrate if they scored, just like it would happen in a real game. For more intrigue and pressure, get your parents to come down and cheer right on top of the situation as close as they can safely get while not impeding the play. You can do the very same thing with your last play desperation pass, complete it and you get the reward, miss it and suffer the consequences.

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Chapter 12

Pass Catching Fundamentals Be

Being a complete running back in todays game means you can catch the football. We like to talk about receiving the ball, not catching it. Receiving is the progression of running the correct route, locating the ball, accepting the thrown ball, securing it and taking it upfield.

Some kids seem to have a knack for receiving the ball. You see them separating themselves from the competition during the Hawaiian Rules football games you play. On the other hand there are some kids who can’t seem to ever make the reception. In either case, those kids reception skills can be improved upon. It may take a good part of the season, but you can help make those good receivers great, make those average receivers good and make those kids who can’t seem to ever find a handle on the ball to serviceable.

A mistake some youth coaches make is doing too little or too much time on pass receiving with their running backs. It should be in direct correlation with how big a threat you want your passing game to be and how involved are your running backs involved in making that threat a reality. Every year our teams vary a bit and we have different starting off points. Let’s say we are using a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the very best, 1 being the worst and 5 being the average for kids in an age group. Some years you may start off with a passer as a 7 and have receivers at 7 and 8. In those years you are probably going to throw more than the years you start off with a thrower at 3 and your best receiver is a 5. In the former equation you are going to spend more time and start working earlier on the pass game than the latter situation.

With our offense, our Wingbacks, Tight Ends and Fullbacks are the primary receivers. On offensive practice days, those kids will be grouped together for a portion of the practice time on some days. Use your best judgment, if your fullback has 1 pass play where he has a chance to catch the ball, you probably don’t want to invest a lot of practice time in developing his receiving skills that could be better spent developing his running and blocking skills.

Above the Waist Drill

Start with the backs holding their hands out with palms out, fingers outstretched, thumbs just touching, fingertips pointing upward to the sky. The elbows are kept in, a wide elbow 108 is a great target for a defender to rip, grab or bump into and cause the ball to be dropped or fumbled.

Once everyone does that, set 4 players across from a coach, in a line at about 15 yards away. One player moves in front of the others, and is the designated target. If the ball is dropped, you have players directly behind the receiver that can flip the ball to the receiver and speed the drill up, so you aren’t spending all our time chasing balls all over the place. The coach or Quarterback throws easy passes to the receivers above the waist, they do not run a pattern, and the receivers are bent at the knees and concentrating on catching the ball away from their bodies then taking it to a “fit” position. You want them to take the ball and fit it into the bend in their right arm, with right hand extending over the tip of the ball. You even want their eyes to follow the ball all the way to the fit. The receiver then runs the ball back to the coach; if you don’t run it back it ends up being a real mess. Don’t let them throw it back or you, or you will be playing fetch, not catch all night.

Quite often on this drill we ask the receiver to freeze at the catch point, we want to see that his eyes and face are pointed at the ball. Too many receivers do not look the ball all the way into their hands. This is the main reason for dropped balls. After having the receiver freezes on the catch point, the coach then gives the “go” call and the player then takes the ball into the fit position with his eyes still firmly affixed to the ball. On the next “go”, the player takes the ball on a full speed sprint back to the coach.

Below the Waist

Next, have each player outstretch his hands and put the pinkies together, fingertips pointing towards the ground. Then do the above drill, but throw the ball below the players waist. Next, alternate above or below the waist throws, the receiver must adjust his hand position to correctly account for a pass above or below the waist. If you have a kid you want to look at as a thrower, here is where we have him working with one of the groups. 109

Confusion Catch

This drill will help your receivers catch the ball on the move and in a crowd. Set a groping of 6 players and or dads at about 10-15 yards at a 45 degree angle from yourself. Those people are about 1 yard apart from each other as shown. On the cadence the receiver runs into the middle of this mini gauntlet. The gauntlet people waive their arms and yell as the ball is thrown and received. Vary the throws so the receiver has to go up and catch the ball at it’s highest point or buried down low or to the back shoulder. On the catch the ball needs to be tucked safely away and run back to be placed at the coaches feet.

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Swing

The Swing Pass Drill mimics one of the most common pass routes for youth football running backs. Set the back up directly behind you at Quarterback. On the snap count he runs parallel to his starting point about 10 yards and then curves gently toward the line of scrimmage. The back needs to look back toward the Quarterback after his third step so he can establish sight to the ball and also be ready to take on a quick throw if the Quarterback comes under pressure. The catch is preferably made above the waist, thumbs touching, with the elbows in.

If your playbook calls for the swing to be a check swing with a block or fake block before the back releases to the pattern, make sure you practice it that way.

Screen Pass Drill

Screen passes can be big or awful plays at the youth level. Most defensive linemen do not know how to read screens, so that gives the offense an advantage. However not all youth defensive linemen pursue aggressively. You may have a minimum play fat Freddie type kid who doesn’t penetrate at all and he will end up catching the ball for an interception. While I’m a big fan of bubble and hitch type screen plays that hit the edge, many traditional screen plays may not be the most effective choice in your playbook.

An easy way to run the screen was taught to me in 2010 by good friend Joe Cianflone. He was the 2010 AYF Coach of the Year and has won 6 AYF National Titles. His screen backs step up to fake a block and then just run backwards to the landing area for the screen. This allows the receiver to have his eyes on the Quarterbacks throwing hand and so he can sight the ball quickly. Whatever technique you do use, practice it with a pass rush of coaches or players with shields.

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More to Come

This section is very bare bones when it comes to pass catching. We plan on coming out with a much more comprehensive e-book and DVD on pass catching very soon.

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ChapChapterter 13

Accountability

As a coach you have the ability to shape a players future through accountability. Discipline isn’t something you do to a player it is what you do for him. Doing nothing takes zero effort, holding a player accountable to a standard does. You control playing time and carries, so if one of your running backs isn’t putting the effort in to block or fake well or he’s not running the plays as you’ve designed them, he needs to be coached up. If he still chooses to make those mistakes he needs to sit.

You are going to get more out of him and he’s going to develop into a more complete back only if he is taught, encouraged and pushed in that direction. If you do have to sit a player, make sure to first let him know the things you like about him as a player, start off with a positive or two. Then move on to why he is being benched and then let him know the door is open, that he will have the chance to earn more playing time or carries and that you have confidence he can do it.

Using Film

A great tool to help a player understand what it is you are trying to encourage is film. Film never lies, it always tells the truth, good or bad. When the game slows down due to being able to watch a game in hindsight, every play and action can be analyzed. You can show a player how he did on that kickout block or fake and either pat him on the back with some encouragement, or coach him up if he made a mistake. It’s a phenomenal accountability tool when the kids know that you are going to comment on nearly every play they make on game day.

However film unto itself isn’t worth much, how you use it determines how effective a tool it will be for you and your team. In the olden days we had a parent film a game, then take the film home, load it into the computer and burn DVD copies of it for every coach. We would hand those DVDs out on Monday to the coaching staff if I remembered to take them to practice and by Thursday we would be able to talk a little bit about what we should do different amongst the coaching staff. However with a 2 day a week practice schedule we go to after school starts, that left little room for improvement in the week following the game.

There are many options these days to make that a much more efficient process due to the wonders of technology. We now have a local person film the games and use a product 113 called Hudl. Hudl is one of the top sellers of film analysis services in the High School, College markets and NFL markets. Hudl now has a youth product that is a real nice fit for most youth coaches.

Why Hudl

After you load your film to your computer and then to Hudl, the system allows you and your coaching staff via the internet to cut, classify, tag, comment (text) and draw over the top of existing film. So your running back can get feedback on every play in the game if you so choose. After you and or your coaching staff put in your comments and drawings over the film, an e-mail goes out to all of your players letting them know the game film is ready for them to watch. No more waiting until Thursday to get any benefit from the film, as your coaches are notified via e-mail when the film is ready for them to view. Your parents love it because now out of town grandparents and relatives can now watch the games the very next day. It is a great tool to build up those emotional bank accounts of your stake holders.

If any of you have tried to do a team film session with your team, we all know those are a colossal waste of time. A group of kids together in a big room throwing ice at each other and losing interest as you try and remember when to stop the tape and remember which comments go where. So many of us grew frustrated with that process and quit doing it years ago, I know we quit doing it back in 2006. For those of you with practice limits, those team film sessions usually count against your limits. Why not let the kids and parents watch from the comfort of their own homes and when they have time?

Your coaches, kids and parents are going to love it if you aren’t doing it already. It’s also a great tool for putting together team and individual highlight DVDs. If you go to www.winningyouthfootball.com and click on the technology tab on the front page, you will get more details. The cost per team is just $299 but when you use the discount coupon code: “CISAR” you get it for just $225. Or you can go monthly for a discounted price of $28 per month with the coupon code. Just think about getting in essence 10-12 more free practices every season. For about $20 per game you don’t have to burn any DVDs anymore and all your players and parents have film access and no more wasted practice time doing team film sessions.

This is a no-brainer decision for most youth coaches who are serious about maxing out the potential of their teams. You will be amazed how much harder kids play when they know they are being filmed and can see on film exactly what you want from them in real game experiences. Film is the ultimate accountability tool and reality check. Some dads have unreal opinions of the abilities of their sons. Film tells no lies and can help bring that outrageous parent back down to earth. You can also put your competitors film into the system and use the same processes to prepare your team if you are so inclined.

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Adding a Text Box

Several of the features we think offer the biggest return on your time investment are the comments feature which Hudl calls “Add a Text Box” and draw over feature which Hudl calls “Telestrate.” This allows you to coach up your kids, the most important part of film study.

If your 3 Back runs the wrong way on say 43 Reverse, you could put a Text Box saying, “3 Back, you have the playside Defensive End on this play.” I don’t like to use the kids names when they are doing something negative when adding text to film. However when you do see great effort or excellent execution, something like “James- excellent crab block” may make sense. To highlight the text boxes I prefer to draw arrows from the text box to the player it is commenting on.

To add a text box alls you have to do is click on the Abc button just below the film of your teams and a text box will pop up. Just add in your text, you can move the text box to wherever you need it to be and can add as many text boxes to the picture as you need.

Whenever you add a text box of telestrate on the screen, the film will automatically stop so your players can read the text box and look at the drawings or lines. All the player has to do it click on the play button and the film will advance through the film at regular speed until another text box or telestration is again on the screen.

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Spot Shadows

Sometimes it’s hard to see one of your running backs on film, the angle of the shot isn’t right, it may be dark, whatever, it happens. A simple way to bring attention to a player is to use the Spot Shadow feature. Just click on the dotted circle just below your screen and up will pop up several different type of Spot Shadows you can insert over your film. It also gives you the flexibility of large or small shadows. A spot shadow is a circular icon that rotates around a certain player. You designate who the shadow rotates around. There are several types of spot shadows you can use, the one I prefer is the broken circle. It rotates around the player you designate and the film is frozen until you push play again to advance it. In the above example you could have spot shadowed your 3 Back prior to the play as well as the playside Defensive End. Your text box saying on 43 Reverse the 3 Back blocks the playside Defensive End, along with an arrow going from the 3 Back to the playside Defensive End goes a long way in helping your 3 Back understand how to get his assignment down properly. You can also highlight excellent effort AND poor effort using the spot shadow feature. Want to get your kids to compete for big hits? Use liberal use of the spot shadow to highlight these. Have a player who just won’t finish plays or stands around? Do a few spot shadows of him in a row, mentioning him by position only, not name and see if that doesn’t get his attention. 116

Telestrating

The “Telestrate” feature is probably my favorite Hudl feature. It allows you to draw over the top of film. You can free hand using your mouse or use the straight line,

arrow or even blocking lines that you point and click to add over your film. Just click on the arrow at the bottom of your screen and a new block of buttons will appear over your screen.

You then choose from the different types of objects you want to insert; a line with arrow, line with blocking insignia, straight line or even draw free hand.

The first time you click, that will be the starting point, then just hold the clicker down and drag your mouse to the end point, when you release, you have your straight line, arrow or blocking object. Or you can just press the squiggly line button and just draw it free hand. So in the above example where the 3 Back

went the wrong way, you could draw a line from the 3 Back to the playside Defensive End to show who he should have blocked on the play.

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Obviously there are hundreds of examples of how to apply this technology to improve your team, but just the ability to help players understand their assignments, base technique and level of effort they will be held accountable to, helps make your team better. Sometimes all it takes to click is something like when can illustrate to your 4 Back why he wasn’t open on 18 Sweep Pass is because he didn’t run toward the Outside Linebacker before he makes his cut and the Corner sits on the pattern instead of biting on the sweep or power fake. You can draw over the film what the pattern should have looked like and even could draw arrows to where the Corner would have ended up on the play if the pattern would have been run properly.

The Highlight Feature

The Highlight feature is another great feature you and your running backs are going to love using. Once you have your roster inputted using the manage function you can designate Any play clip can be designated to a player, it will be stored as a personal highlight for that player. You can designate a play to be a highlight for multiple players. You can even make highlights for say your offensive line as a group or your defensive backs, the possibilities are endless. Just click on the star next to the play clip number and your roster will pop up. Then just click on the star next to the players name and it will always be in his folder.

Players and moms and dads can also make their own highlight folder. If you have a little bit of technical skills you can even burn DVDs or have Hudl do it for you for a very nominal fee.

As I analyze the film, I just click all the players names who had an extraordinary play on that snap. Each folder is continuously updated, so every one of your players can click on their name and see their game highlights for the season or individual game.

For those of you that do a team DVD or even individual player DVDs, you know doing this takes you an unreal amount of time. One season I had over 80 hours invested in highlight DVDs for my team. With Hudl you take care of it in the first watch through. 118

You can also set up subgroups of players and only send out clips that apply to those subgroups. Say you like the play of one of your Defensive Backs, you can set up as sub group of all your Defensive Backs and share that great clip only with them. By sharing only a handful of clips with that group that applies to their needs may improve the Hudl attention span of your players.

Player Accountability

Accountability is built into the Hudl product. Using the “Manage” function and clicking on roster, Hudl tells you how many minutes that each player has been viewing film for that day, the previous day and the in the last 7 days.

This is just a sample I set up. While each game film was just 15-17 minutes in length we had players that were watching 2-3 hours of film a week. You always know how much time every player was accessing his Hudl account.

Another trick is to insert text boxes into the film and have a quiz. You could put a text box halfway through the film that says; “Our film question of the day is how many onside kicks have we recovered this season?”

Ask your players what the film question was- if a player can’t answer, the team suffers some kind of mild consequence. You can even go the high tech route and say whoever e-mails you the Text Box code words that you inserted in the film- gets to be team captain this week. The Text Box might read something like this, “The first 4 players to send me an e-mail or text that says these exact words, will be team captain this week, the words are: I watched the Gretna Film, Slippery Rock Rocks.”

While Hudl may be the best technical tool a running back can use to improve his game, his best bet at improving is you. Most good running backs in the NFL can tell you who first taught him how to run the football, block, tackle and most importantly how to add value to their team. Take the time to get better as a coach so your backs will be in a position to be the very best teammate and running back that they can possibly be. Don’t be afraid to take that road less traveled to help your backs get to the top of their potential range. Lastly thank you for taking the time and investing a few of your hard in dollars because you wanted to give your running backs a great football experience. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask me at [email protected] I appreciate your commitment and effort and would be more than happy to clarify anything in this book or DVD for you.

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CCChapterChapter 14

Practice Plans

Running Back Practice Plan Examples

Practice Schedule Week 1 Age 8-10

Monday- No Pads
5:30 Parent and Player Orientation
6:00 Cals- Stance, cadence review, Butt kicks, high knees,5 Jumping Jacks, 5 lunges
6:15 Angle Form Fit tackling
6:25 Snap Progression Drill
6:35 Break- discuss and drill back numbering system only
6:40 Deer Hunter Game and Evaluation
7:00 Sumo Game and Evaluation
7:15 Towel Game and Evaluation
7:30 Done

Tuesday- No Pads
5:30 Cals- Stance, using cadence: Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, 5 lunges
5:40 Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:50 Gauntlet Drill and Evaluation
6:05 Get Offs
6:15 Pole Drill
6:25 Break-discuss and drill hole numbering system
6:30 Dummy Relay Race Evaluations
6:45 Base Block on Dummies
7:00 Cadence Claps
7:05 Rabbit Races
7:15 Hawaiian Rules Football
7:30 Done

Thursday- No Pads
5:30 Cals- Stance, using cadence: Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges
5:35 Angle Form fit Tackling
5:40 Handoff Drills
5:55 Tug Drill 120

6:05 Defensive Indys
6:25 Break- discuss and drill the play calling system putting backs and hole together
6:30 Defensive Indys
7:15 Deer Hunter Game
7:30 Done

Week 2- With Pads

Monday
5:30 Cals using cadence every time: Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges
5:35 Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Splatter Blocking Drill
5:55 Get Offs, Pole Drill
6:05 Direct Snap and Squeeze
6:15 Hand off and Squeeze
6:25 Second Man in and Safe Fumble
6:40 Break- Review play numbering system and tags
6:45 Cadence Claps
6:50 Handoff Eyes Right
7:00 Backs Group16 Power Install
7:15 Team 16 Power on air, Bags at Point of Attack
7:30 Done

Tuesday
5:30 Cals-Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping jacks, lunges
5:35 Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:45 Defensive Practice Day
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Cals- Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges
5:35 Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:45 Tug, Second Man In
5:55 Chariot Racers, Double Squeeze
6:05 Punch
6:15 Mirror- Mirror and Go
6:25 Learn 18 Sweep and 22 Wedge, Review 16 Power, On air, bags at POA
6:45 Break- Aggressiveness
6:50 Team- 16 Power, 22 Wedge (first step), 18 Sweep, all on air then dummies POA
7:10 Fit and Freeze walk on a “scout defense” 16 Power, 22 Wedge, 18 Sweep
7:20 Pro Agility Relay Races
7:30 Done

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Week 3

Monday
5:30 Cals- Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Tug, Second Man In
5:50 Mirror Run Slide
6:00 Pick a Shoulder
6:10 Keep Away Drill
6:20 Break- Attitude
6:25 Oklahoma
6:35 Install 31 Trap, 32 Wedge, 43 Reverse
6:55 Team: 16 Power, 22 Wedge, 18 Sweep, 31 Trap/32 Wedge, 43 Reverse, on air, then walk through on scout defense, then full speed with coaches & dummies at POA
7:15 Live Versus Scout Defense
7:30 Done

Tuesday
5:30 Cals-Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Defensive Practice Day
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Cals- Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, high knees, Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Special Teams Practice Day
7:30 Done

Week 4

Monday
5:30- Butt kicks, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Bag Laterals
5:50 Tug, Second Man In
6:00 Gauntlet Squeeze
6:10 Base Chaser Drill
6:20 Break- review coin flip
6:25 Pass Blocking Live
6:35 Diamond Drill
6:45 3 Level Oklahoma 122

7:00 Team: 16 Power, 22 Wedge, 18 Sweep, 31 Trap, 43 Reverse, all on air, then walk through on scout defense, Nasty and Tunnel adjustments then with coaches and dummies at POA. 16 Wedge, 16 Pass, 32 Wedge, 18 Sweep Pass, Practice subbing
7:15 Offensive “Compete”
7:30 Done

Tuesday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, high knees, Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Defensive Practice Day
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Fit Tackling
5:40 Special Teams
6:10 Above/Below the Waist Pass Catching
6:25 Starter Cut Drill
6:35 Break- Fakes
6:45 Team Offense on air with 11 subbing
7:10 Team Defense
7:30 Done

Week 5 Monday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Lateral Bag Hops, Lateral Long Bag Hops
5:55 L Cut Drill
6:05 Tug, Second Man In
6:15 Break- Touchdowns
6:20 Mirror Run Slide Drill
6:30 3 Level Oklahoma
6:40 Team Offense-Formationing, Double, War, Split
6:50 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze, with dummies at point of attack
7:15 Offensive “Compete”
7:30 Done

Tuesday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Tackling Circuit Drill
5:55 All- 3 Level Oklahoma
6:15 Defensive Practice Day
7:30 Done

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Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Special Teams
6:25 Long Bag Hop and Squeeze
6:35 Break- Flushing Bad Plays
6:40 Spin Move
6:55 Team Offense on air with subbing from 20 yards
7:15 Team Defense on air with subbing from 20 yards
7:30 Done

Week 6 Monday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Ladders
5:50 Bag Laterals
6:00 Point Decide
6:15 Burst Race
6:25 Pole Drill
6:35 Break- review Accountability
6:40 10 Yard Box
6:55 Team Offense on air, Bird Dog Fit and Freeze all plays versus scout defense
7:20 Offensive “Compete”
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Defensive Practice Day
7:30 Done

Week 7

Monday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Stiff Arm Fit
5:50 Oklahoma
6:00 Stiff Arm Choice
6:10 Fall Push Up
6:20 30 Yard Box
6:50 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze on scout defense, with dummies at point of attack
7:05 Offensive “Compete”
7:15 Slam Dunk game
7:30 Done 124

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Special Teams and Defense Practice Day
7:30 Done

Week 8 Tuesday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Stiff Arm Choice
5:55 Keep Away Drill
6:05 Front and Back Hops
6:15 Confusion Catch
6:30 break- review Coachability
6:35 Offensive Compete
6:45 Stiff Arm Sidelines
7:00 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze on scout defense, with dummies at point of attack
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Cals- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Defense and Special Teams Day
7:30 Done

Week 9 Monday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Double Squeeze
5:50 Step Decide
6:05 Log Choice
6:20 Pro Agility Races
6:30 Keep Away Drill
6:40 Review Clutch
6:45 Bucking Bronco Drill
7:00 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze on scout defense, with dummies at point of attack
7:20 Offensive “Compete”
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Special Teams and Defense
7:15 Done

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Week 10 Tuesday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Lateral Hop and Squeeze
5:50 Tug, Second Man In
6:00 Turn Decide
6:10 break- Complete Player
6:15 Gauntlet Squeeze
6:25 Oklahoma
6:35 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze on scout defense, with dummies at point of attack
7:05 Compete if doing well
7:15 Done

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Defense and Special Teams Practice Day
7:30 Done

Week 11 Tuesday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Dummy Relay Races
5:50 Pole Drill
6:00 10 Yard Box
6:10 Break- review subbing
6:15 Tug, Second Man In
6:25 Diamond Drill
6:35 Forearm Drill
6:45 3 Level Oklahoma
6:55 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze on scout defense, with dummies at point of attack
7:15 Hawaiian Rules Football
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Defense and Special Teams Practice Day
7:30 Done

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Week 12 Tuesday
5:30- Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Rabbit Races
5:50 Z Cones
6:00 Slam Dunk
6:10 Break- review
6:15 Stiff Arm Sidelines
6:25 Turn Decide
6:35 Back and Forward Hops
6:45 30 Yard Box
6:55 All plays installed so far on air, fit and freeze on scout defense, with dummies at point of attack
7:10 Offensive Compete
7:20 Hawaiian Rules Football
7:30 Done

Thursday
5:30 Butt Kickers, high knees, Jumping Jacks, lunges, Angle Form Tackling
5:40 Defense and Special Teams Practice Day

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About the Author

“Winning Youth Football, a Step by Step Plan” and associate books and DVDs were written by Dave Cisar. Dave is the founder and President of the Screaming Eagles Organization. It was started in 1998 as a free program for at-risk youth in inner- city Omaha, Nebraska. In 2004 Dave started up the Lincoln, Nebraska area program and continues to coach there. The Omaha program became independent in 2007. His programs have served over 3,000 children ages 6-14 with programs in academic accountability, football, baseball, weight training and basketball.

He has coached over 20 years at all levels of youth football. His teams have played in 5 different Leagues in 3 different cities. Since moving to this system his teams have gone 149-21 and won multiple division, league, tournament and State Titles. He has spoken at over 100 youth coaching clinics all over the country including the Nike Coach of the Year Clinics and the Frank Glazier Mega Clinics. He has been on the same venue as Bobby Bowden, Les Miles, Ken Niumatalolo, Nick Saban and Jeff Tedford to name just a few. He has worked with youth football programs in every state and several in Canada, Germany and Panama and has been brought on as a consultant to several High School football programs.

Dave is a former business owner and is a proud family man. He played college football at the University Nebraska at Omaha before transferring and graduating from Texas A&M University where he did not play sports. He gave his life to Christ in 1996.

Additional Materials: To order additional materials go to www.winningyouthfootball.com

Installing the Single Wing Offense For Youth Football: $49.95 2 DVDs nearly 2 hours -White board instruction by Dave along with play clips inserted from his last 8 teams. You get practice tape clips, so you can see the plays and techniques in action as they are being discussed on the white board. Includes base blocking rules, detailed coaching points, implementation tricks and instructions to install the entire offense. Includes 90 page e-book. Professionally developed by Reliant Video.

Winning Youth Football, a Step by Step Plan: $29.95 274 pages. This is the paperback book. We give you everything you need to succeed in coaching a youth football team. This isn’t written in “coach talk” and is easy to understand. We take you from the preseason coaches meetings through the last game of 128 the season. This includes our practice plans and practice methodology as well as our drills, techniques and implementation break down steps. It includes our schemes and plays on offense, special teams and defense as well as the reads and adjustments. It is a comprehensive guide to coaching effectively using the Single Wing Offense that anyone can use. It also contains some much needed team and program management material as well.

Developing a Smothering Defense in Youth Football, Step by Step on DVD- $39.95 Dave’s base defense as well as attacking “Viper” defenses are featured along with the defensive drills his teams use to smother the willpower of opposing defenses. Includes: position descriptions and responsibilities, techniques, drills, alignments, stunts and blitzes. Over half of this DVD are game and practice footage clips. 80 minute run time. Professionally developed by Reliant Video. Includes 170 page e-book

2007 & 2008 Games DVD: $29.95 on DVD See Dave’s age 10-11 team go 9-1. See the Jet Series in these DVD’s including all 6 plays in the series. This is an excellent resource with subtitles and with the games narrated by Dave. Produced by Reliant Video.

Game Day Management Becoming a Good Game Day Coach $39.95 on DVD Learn how to effectively manage your game day, something that takes most coaches years develop. Learn how to effectively manage the pre-game, scouting, setting goals, spotting, making adjustments, managing playing time, play call sequencing, no-huddle methodology,clock management, coaching an effective halftime as well as a good post game wrap up. Included are Dave’s “Cheat Sheet” for effective play-calling based solely on his simple pre-count method. He reviews his easy to install game day scouting method to determining plays to be called and players to be coached up. Learn how to get the most out of your team and to “steal” games from more skilled opponents, through game day coaching. Includes both white board and game day clips of the 2006 season. Produced by Reliant Video.

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The Practice Organization, The Perfect Practice $39.95 on DVD Cut hours off your weekly practice grind using Dave’s practice methodology, while at the same time improving the skill levels of your players and team. See how he makes practices both fun and instructional so the kids beg to come to practice, not dread it. See his secrets to developing players and teams from scratch using progression teaching methods and his ease into contact approach. His player selection process and fit and freeze methods have helped his teams and many others make tremendous progress. These methods, games and drills make any youth coach look like a genius. Includes both white board instruction and lots of practice footage. Reliant Video product. Single Wing 303- Advanced Single Wing Concepts : $44.95 DVD nearly 2 hours – Take your team to the next level with new plays, adjustments and game day strategies. Includes 217 page-book with playside and complementary coach keys for every play. Includes the Spread Single Wing passing game, Buck Series and more advanced plays for the Jet, Spinner, Mouse and Base Series plays. Includes Hudl tutorial. For the advanced Single Wing coach who has had success and is looking to take your team to the next level. White board instruction by Dave along with practice and play clips inserted from his last 4 teams. Professionally developed by Reliant Video. Developing Chemistry, Character and Confidence in Youth Football: $19.95 116 Pages e-book Download – Learn how to develop the most important factor in your teams success, Chemistry and Character. Includes how to do it step-by-step with Dave’s tips and tricks along with coaching tools like the Link Program and 15 Character Lessons that you can choose to e-mail to your players and parents. See your team come together and play selflessly while your parents love you for caring beyond “football.” Implementing the Single Wing Offense- Cheat Cards: $29.95 These are 28 3x5 embossed playing cards with the plays drawn out on one side and the players assignments on the other. Great for helping you or your assistant coaches install the offense. Just hand the card to your assistant of the play being installed and you don’t have to worry about it being put in wrong. Practice Organization- Cheat Cards: $29.95 These are 26 3x5 embossed playing cards of our most popular evaluation drills, team development drills and base drills. The drill or concept is on the front in either drawings or pictures and the details are on the back in text. Great for helping you or your assistant coaches run a more efficient practice. Just hand the card to your assistant of the drills you want run and forget it. Great for coaches who need reminders or for the poorly committed assistant who failed to attend any of your clinics or read any of the books or watch any of the DVDs you sent home with him.

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Coaching Clinics Go to the web site http://winningyouthfootball.com for more information about the Coaching Clinics Dave will be speaking at this year. He usually does about 20 public clinics at various locations across the US as well as a handful of private clinics. Go to www.winningyouthfootball.com to order by Visa/MasterCard or Call 402-730-8151 to order by phone.