The HURRICANE.

One of the problems football coaches encounter is that, all other things being completely equal, the more physical team generally wins the game. Whoever blocks, tackles, and just plain knocks the other down is most likely to have more points on the scoreboard at the end of the game.

That's an elegant restatement of the problem. Now, what do we do about a solution?

There are a lot of ways to build aggression in football players. In high school, the emphasis is on not hitting your teammates, due to the risk of injury. As a result, we tend to focus our impact time on sleds, bags, and other nonhuman equipment that doesn't incur medical expenses when broken.

The youth levels, however, are vastly different. Most youth programs don't have expensive sleds and other equipment, and so need to focus their hitting on one another, even though it is somewhat more dangerous. Before you shriek out that I'm advocating increased risk for your players, I want you to think about this:

Should your players hit and be hit in practice, where you and your staff can tailor the drills, control the matchups, and otherwise damp things down to reduce injury while still building confidence...

...Or should your players discover hitting in a game, where anywhere from two to five officials will be more interested in collecting a paycheck than in enforcing safety rules correctly, and the opposing team will care neither for the equality of matchups or for any conditions that adversely affect their ability to score?

I would rather my players gain confidence in hitting in a controlled environment where they can improve without worrying about the blindside block or decleater from out of nowhere, and where my quick whistle and the eyes of my assistants can stop a drill before someone is injured.

Enter, the Hurricane drill. I've discussed this drill before, most notably in the FORUM, but this is the first time I've placed it online in complete form.

Setup:

Take four cones, shields, or bags and set them up to mark an area approximately five yards on a side (25 square yards). Place three players in the square with one football.

Player A: Tackler. His responsibility is to securely bring down the ball carrier.
Player B: Blocker. His responsibility is to prevent the tackler from making any contact with the ball carrier. He can strike from almost any angle (although you can provide pressure on him to block only from the front-- I usually work the drill from the defensive side and allow the offense to "cheat" slightly.)
Player C: Ball Carrier. He must avoid being tackled as long as possible.

Execution:

All three players begin movement on the whistle. The designated tackler must attack the ball carrier immediately, not seeking to avoid the blocker, but disengaging from him as quickly as possible if contact is made. The blocker can attack, sit, angle, or use any other technique or method to move the tackler away from the ball carrier, who can juke, spin, and dodge as needed to avoid being tackled. As a natural occurrence within the drill, the blocker may hold. If you are working on offense, penalize him with pushups, up/downs, etc. If you are working on defense, your defender can use this as an opportunity to execute holdbreaking techniques (something you should work at least five minutes out of every defensive practice.)


Coaching Points:

The tackler should keep his eyes pinned to the ball carrier and use his peripheral vision to locate the blocker and avoid him as necessary. He should use any and all holdbreaking techniques necessary to separate from the blocker and regain an angle of approach to the ball carrier.

Ball carriers will generally be able to spin out of tackles unless the tackler makes a secure and tight wrap, grabbing cloth with both hands. The drill does not end until the tackler has managed to bring the ball carrier to the ground. All players involved in the drill must remain within the square.

As a conditioning exercise, I require my players to move from tackler, to blocker, to ball carrier. This has two affects on the drill. First, the ball carriers are generally tired, which gives the outnumbered tackler a better chance to bring them down in a timely manner. Second, it extends the period during which the athletes are strenuously active, which pushes them closer to their VO(2max). This is the maximum rate at which the body can absorb oxygen. Training to increase this threshold increases the burst ability of your players-- they will be able to function at peak explosive effort for longer periods. They will also recover more quickly between plays, and be better able to recuperate after games.

Some players will focus too extensively on the blocker and forget the ball carrier. This has a way of weeding itself out of the drill-- the longer you fart around with the blocker, the more tired you are going to get. Your best option to get out of the drill in a hurry is to act like the blocker doesn't exist and simply attack the ball carrier. This translates on game day to defenders that shed tacklers faster and penetrate to the offensive backfield in a hurry.

I try to run this drill for fifteen to twenty minutes (four segments) once a week or so in the preseason, and for five to ten minutes (two segments) in the regular season.

Hope this helps!

~D.

The Most Important Skills in Football

(Originally posted July 23, 2008)

I get asked all the time what the best drills are for football, how to plan practices, and whether or not the Gap-8 really works as a defense.


1) Jerry Vallotton's Timing Drill (DoubleWing.org), and my Hammer Drill (Coming in a later article here on the FB4Y Blog.)


2) By breaking down the necessary skills you need to teach and developing a practical program that first teaches, then reinforces, and finally perfects them in a consistent manner.


3) YES!


But one question I wish someone would ask is, "Coach Wade, what's the most important part of football?"


I think a guy named Lombardi said it best, "Football is, and always will be, a game of blocking and tackling."


When you break these two fundamental skills down into their most important aspects, you have one foundation that applies to both: stance and start.  

 

The biggest problem that youth football coaches face, at least when it comes to on-field skills, is coaching explosive movement. All-too frequently they simply don't know how to coach it, so they let it get lost in the shuffle. The result is what you see in the diagram above.

It's not natural to play low. Youth players are human, and it's a very human tendency to want to pop up and look around. Unfortunately, it's a very real truth that the quickest way to end up lying down on a football field is to stand up.

My intention here is to focus your attention on your players and they way they both go into and come out of their stances. Proper stance and start is the most important thing a football player has to learn. We begin working on it on day one, and several times a day we correct our players in their basic stances. We progress naturally from there to explosive linear movement forward, in what Tim Murphy of Clovis East calls, "Hitting on the rise." In a perfect world our players make contact while they are still low and compressed like a tightly-coiled spring, and their follow-through steps take them under their opponent while gradually lifting, which takes the defender off his balance.

It has to be practiced, and it's so important that I believe it should be practiced not just every day, but several times each day.

Here's the way this works: we break practice into five minute increments called segments. A two-hour practice is composed of twenty-four segments, and an offensive or defensive period is usually composed of between five and seven segments. The first portion of these periods is usually a brief individual drills period to refresh skills and get the players warmed up for their positions.

Since each aspect of the team has their own coach (On offense these are Offensive Line, Backfield, and Tight Ends/Receivers. On defense these are Linebackers, Defensive Line, and Defensive Backs.) we have a perfect opportunity to check relevant stances consistently and constantly throughout the practice.

Let's say you and I are coaching together, and you're my defensive backs coach. When the defensive period begins I blow my whistle three times, loudly, to get every player and coaches' attention. Then I call out, "Defensive indo," (Individual time.) "Go to your coach!" The players have ten seconds to get to their coach, no matter where you happen to be.

When they get to you, they'll break down into a good hit position, which is the fundamental movement position in all athletics. (Seriously, compare it to basketball stance, a defensive tennis stance, even the way soccer players stand when they're not falling down because an opposing player came too close to them.) You'll take a quick glance at their body position, making corrections as needed and as quickly as possible, and then give them a set of brief calisthenics to perform, such as Ten push ups, or Fifteen sit ups. As they finish these exercises, you'll give them a second stance to demonstrate, such as Three-point-Stance. Like you just did, you'll look them over and make brief corrections as needed.

You can even take an extra few seconds and have them execute a get-off, popping out to block your extended hands, one player at a time as you move down the line. Or you can have them execute a dip and rip drill (arm over or arm under) against you, one at a time, moving swiftly along the line and reinforcing this vital escape technique. Or you can hold a dummy and have them hit, lock, and wrap up in the first part of a proper tackle. The possibilities are endless, and as this only takes seconds to work in you can get through an entire group of eleven offensive linemen in less than a minute. (Since there are five offensive linemen on an offensive unit, but only one-to-three running backs, one quarterback, and two-to-four receivers at any one time, the offensive line unit comprised of starters and backups tends to be larger than any other part of the team. In a typical 26-man roster, about ten to fourteen players will be offensive linemen, and the remainder will be spread among the "skill" positions. When planning drills into your practice plan, always consider the time it takes for each group to pass through each drill the required number of times for mastery.)

What have we just done? Well, we not only checked two stances (hit position and one extra), but we also worked a conditioning exercise (sprint to the coach) and a core strength-building exercise (push ups, sit ups, etc.) into the practice in a very time-efficient manner. Executing this practice method takes mere moments. Even adding in the extra get-offs only takes a few extra seconds, and provides an incredible return on investment. Some coaches may go their whole seasons without spending any real time on this important fundamental, and in mere moments we can check it, correct it, and reinforce it every day, from the first day of practice until the day we say our goodbyes.

Stance and start are the most important fundamental foundations in football. A proper stance allows for explosive movement into the opponent, and the correct start allows you to deliver the first blow. By taking just a few seconds throughout practice to focus on them, you can continually reinforce these skills, and proper execution in these areas will improve your team, no matter what offense or defense you choose to run.

~D.