Practicing the Hand off

Drills practicing fundamentals like an effective hand offs can make the difference between a mediocre team and an excellent one. A simple drill for a hand off is to line up all of your running backs in two lines facing each other in what we will call line A and Line B. At the coaches signal player A leaves line A running with the football towards line B. At the same time a player leaves line B, and when they meet in the middle Player A hands off the ball to Player B. At this moment another player leaves line A and accepts a handoff from player B. This drill should perform in a seamless motion. This is a great drill to help running backs practice hand offs, and should be run every day.

Football tackling 101

Learning how to perform a proper tackle is fundamental to the game of football. If you, or your players dont take tackling seriously you will not stop the offense and could also cause injuries. When you tackle your opponent remember three important steps:

First, plant yourself in front of your opponent. An excellent technique is to plant your foot in the middle of your opponents. Also, and in coordination with your feet throw your arms back preparing to grab.

Second you want to bring your other foot into the mix, and at the same time throw your arms up and around your opponent. At this point you are well planted in front and your head should be in direct contact. Never, ever, ever tackle with the top of your head down, keep it up and square against your opponent. You need to literally imagine that the football is a big hamburger and you want to bite it and not slam your forehead against it.

Third, throw your hips up and hard as you drive the offensive player backwards. Setting yourself up for this last step will ultimately prove the success in the tackle.

Strength and conditioning: Up Downs

Up downs is an excellent conditioning drill that will improve reaction time and endurance. Players will start this drill by running in place as fast as they can, keeping their knees high as possible. Then at random a coach will yell, down or blow a whistle at which the players must dive to the ground do a push up and then jump back into running in place. Because this drill can be very taxing, it is important to increase the time spent at this slowly over time as the players strength increases.

Conditioning: The five dot drill

Strength and reaction time is what makes a great football athlete. For this reason, coaches like this drill for its focus on speed and accuracy. In order to execute the drill you will need a place with five dots, either marked on the grass or on a mat, forming an x shape much like the dots for the number five side of dice.

The player will start by placing a foot on the back two dots and then jumps together to the middle dot and then out separating his legs to the outer dots, much like you would see in hop scotch. Next the player will jump touching each dot with on leg only, and then switch using the other leg. After this, the player will touch all of the dots with both feet together. The last phase is really returning to the original starting phase of jumping together and apart, however this time the athlete will change directions after they have jumped to the outer dots. Because this drill is intended for accuracy and speed, it is recommended that players start out slow and deliberate and then speed up to their maximum time.