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pointyfootball

10-12 Y/o Practice Ideas

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All:

Just wanted to put out here some practice ideas that worked for my kids (10-12y/o's).

* Sharks & minnows (or any other name you want to call it). Use a regulation field, all players (except one) line up in endzone and try and reach other endzone w/out having flag pulled. Once their flag is pulled they help pull others' flags, either by being stationary (staying wherever they were when their flag was pulled) or pursuing. I would give them only 2-3 seconds to line back up after each time down the field, so this excercise was great for flag pulling technique, conditioning, and running in the open field. Variations: coaches could have 2-3 balls, stand behind person who is it (so they can't see you) and then throw the balls to a few players waiting to run. Once they catch ball, the pursuer could only get those with footballs. This was a great warm-up game and the kids never grew tired of it.

* Handball (what we call it in soccer, as it's the same game). Two teams, regulation field, one football. Team with ball starts on their 5 yard line. They move the ball down field by passing it to their teammates. No LOS, so ball can be passed forward, sideways, back. Once a player catches ball they have to freeze and immediately look to pass it again. Team gets a touchdown if they receive the ball in their endzone. If ball hits ground, or is intercepted, it is the other team's ball at the spot. Defender must be one step away from person trying to throw ball (no faceguarding). This is a free-flowing game and the kids love it. To vary things up, make a stipulation that every player on the team has to touch ball 1-2x before scoring to get results you want (i.e. everyone participate). Good conditioning/defending work and the kids loved it. I used it at the end of practice for 5-10 minutes several times and they always grumbled when I would tell them practice was over.

* Shielding, Illegal Contact & Poor sportsmanship: Anyone can catch a ball in practice, especially with minimal pressure from defender. To help my players become better gameday receivers, I ran a practice that worked on players concentration when receiving a pass. Split them in groups of three and played moneky in the middle (10 yards between two outside players), except the "monkey" could only distract/shield/yell and not tip or intercept pass. This could then progress to the person in the middle standing next to the receiver and jostling/bumping/jersey pulling/holding, shielding his/her vision, yelling, or anything that can (and will) happen during a game (all while standing stationary. Progress to catching the ball while running. QB is 5-10 yards away, two defenders in between QB and receiver (two lines of receivers facing each other, 10 yards out, they just take turns running square across the field). Use same type of distractions (holding, pushing, yelling, etc.) Boys obviously have great fun doing this drill. It MUST be emphasized that most of this is either illegal or unsportsmanlike (one in the same in my book), but by practicing it, you're kids won't be surprised by it. I especially emphasized to them that we were doing these things to HELP our teammates - not prove that we could distract them. Once they realized their task was to help, not hurt, it was cool to see they worked harder at distrating the better players, and took it a bit easier on those who struggled to catch a pass with NO pressure. I was happy to note that we performed extremely well with crossing routes on offense and playing the deep ball on defense. Better than any other team IMHO.

* Rushing the QB. We won the SB primarily b/c we applied so much pressure to the other teams' QBs and they were all passing teams. Practicing this 2-3 times a season by showing them how to take a curved run, pushing the QB to their weak side, breaking down so they don't run past the QB, focusing solely on the QB's hips/flags and also working together with the other LB (we played with one right over the center).

* Partner passing relay race. One ball per pair of players. Starting in the back of the endzone (everyone), player w/out ball runs a pass route, receives ball and stops dead. Once ball is caught, the person who threw the ball then runs their own pass route, receives ball and so on. If ball is dropped, ball must be thrown back to person who passed it, receiver recovers back beside QB, then runs another route. If receiver doesn't run a good route, coach yells for both to "give 5", meaning 5 pushups. First pair up and back 1 or 2 times is the winner. I try and pair kids up to make sure it's fairly even. Kids quickly learn that the deep pass patterns are low-probability. Fun warm up game.

Sorry for the long post. I'd be curious to hear others' drills & games that were successful, both from teaching a skill and/or conditioning, or especially just plain fun.

PF

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These are great, drills. Can't go wrong with Sharks and Minnows. We usually ended our practice with this. AND the last player (the player who won) had to make it to the other side by himself. Usually at that point, I would put the minnows in zones and back far to give the player a chance.

A few other drills I called that seemed to help:

1. "Levels of Death": Essentially you set 3 sets of cones about five feet apart. Put a player between each set of cones (thus you will have three "defenders"). I had the kids line up facing the side "Levels of Death" about 10 yards back. As I blew my whistle, they would sprint and take a hand-off from me (ala an end-around) and then cut up through the row of cones and try to make it past each level.

2. "Levels of Death with a Blocker" (couldn't come up with a better name): The same thing as #1 except you widen the cones and have one ball-carrier with a blocker. Our league allows blocking, so this did a few things. It taught second-level blocking, and taught the ball-carrier to properly "use" his blockers.

3. "Swarm": Have all the players line up facing you about 10 feet back. You hold a ball in your hand. All players must start by running in place. Next you act as if you are going to pass in a certain direction. You pump back and look to the right, and they must move sides ways to your right. You go left, they move left (all the time they have to keep their legs moving and eyes on you). You look downfield and they move backward, etc. Mix it up. Then act like you are handing off and yell "Swarm!" and the players must all print to you and touch the ball.

We also had a lot of "contests" in our practice. We had 20-yard dash races, who could throw it the farthest, 10 yard races (running backward), etc.

Another thing that the kids really liked (which isn't so much a drill) was something we did as we were practicing plays. Every now and then I would ask them to run the play in "slooooow-mooootion". This was actually nice because a) the kids really loved it, and B) I could easily see who was not properly executing their assignment and rectify it. After "slow motion" we would go "1/2 speed", and then full speed. It really helped us polish some of the more complex plays.

I coach k-2nd, so have to keep the drills fairly simple, and obviously fun.

Funny, as when the season ended (a few weeks ago), I was like, "Whew. I need a break". Now I can't wait for it to kick up again! ;-)

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