Loving Middle School American Football Winning Drills
Receivers: Ball Security Drill
When a receiver catches the ball they need to immediately put it into a secure ball carrying position. A great catch can be broken down into three steps: First, keep your arms extended out in front of your body with your hands out forming an imaginary triangle with your fingers and thumbs. Second, keep your eyes on the ball through the entire catch. Third, tuck the ball away security, keeping your eyes on the ball, so that it is in a high tight position. Many receivers can get into a bad habit of looking away from the ball before it is stored away properly. Taking your eye off the ball increases incomplete passes, fumbles, and turnovers. To overcome this habit set up a simple drill where two players pass the ball to each other stopping at each critical step: the catch, the follow through, and the tuck.
Up Downs Conditioning Drill
Up downs is an excellent conditioning drill that will improve reaction time and endurance. This drill starts by having the players run in place as fast as they can encourage them to get their knees up as high as they can. 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.
Traditional Driving Block
Simple drives are important for linemen to practice and perfect. The most traditional or basic block is a drive block. When you want to remove an opponent effectively you will use the drive block again and again. The first step of this block is the scrimmage alignment, in order to drive to the right or left this basic block will push your opponent in the way that they are aligned, so if they are aligned to the right the drive will push them to the right. When driving start with your play side foot. Connect hard against your opponent, bring your other foot into play and continue to drive in the aligned direction.
Hand off drill
Because hand offs are such a vital part of a running offense, running backs should practice hand off skills every day. One great hand off drill starts by having two separate lines of players facing each other: line A and line B. A player leaves line A with the football and runs at 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 the point of the hand off another player leaves line A and runs towards player B, who hands off the ball to the new player. This drill should perform in a seamless motion. Practice this drill every day to ensure that your running backs are effective on their hand offs.
When a receiver catches the ball they need to immediately put it into a secure ball carrying position. A great catch can be broken down into three steps: First, keep your arms extended out in front of your body with your hands out forming an imaginary triangle with your fingers and thumbs. Second, keep your eyes on the ball through the entire catch. Third, tuck the ball away security, keeping your eyes on the ball, so that it is in a high tight position. Many receivers can get into a bad habit of looking away from the ball before it is stored away properly. Taking your eye off the ball increases incomplete passes, fumbles, and turnovers. To overcome this habit set up a simple drill where two players pass the ball to each other stopping at each critical step: the catch, the follow through, and the tuck.
Up Downs Conditioning Drill
Up downs is an excellent conditioning drill that will improve reaction time and endurance. This drill starts by having the players run in place as fast as they can encourage them to get their knees up as high as they can. 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.
Traditional Driving Block
Simple drives are important for linemen to practice and perfect. The most traditional or basic block is a drive block. When you want to remove an opponent effectively you will use the drive block again and again. The first step of this block is the scrimmage alignment, in order to drive to the right or left this basic block will push your opponent in the way that they are aligned, so if they are aligned to the right the drive will push them to the right. When driving start with your play side foot. Connect hard against your opponent, bring your other foot into play and continue to drive in the aligned direction.
Hand off drill
Because hand offs are such a vital part of a running offense, running backs should practice hand off skills every day. One great hand off drill starts by having two separate lines of players facing each other: line A and line B. A player leaves line A with the football and runs at 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 the point of the hand off another player leaves line A and runs towards player B, who hands off the ball to the new player. This drill should perform in a seamless motion. Practice this drill every day to ensure that your running backs are effective on their hand offs.
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