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Youth Football Coaching - Ball Security and Ball Stripping Coach
Dave Cisar Turnovers are huge in youth football. With most of us playing 10 minute quarters, there are fewer possessions in youth football games than in the much longer college and pro games. Add in the fact that plays get off slower and there are fewer pass plays and stoppages of play and you get the drift, losing the ball is huge in the youth game. That means number one, you need to protect the ball when you have it and second, employ techniques to take the ball when you are on defense. The great thing about ball protection drills is you are teaching the strip at the same time. After teaching the 4 points of contact and always holding the kids accountable to keeping the ball high and tight, ball protection drills make a lot of sense. A good one to start with is just having a runningback seat the ball, and have another back hold onto his jersey or hip pad from behind. While the runner jogs for 15 yards to a cone in a straight line, the defender trails and punches and rips at the ball. On the last rep let the back and defender go all out instead of a jog. On the next rep add a second defender attacking from the side on the ball side, but from about 5 yards away. But this time the defender from behind is just trying to hold the runner up, not punching or ripping at the ball. Tell the defender to provide just enough resistance with both hands to allow the ballcarrier to make progress, but not be able to run. This can be a 10-15 yard drill. Add a ball security component to every running back or receiver drill you have by placing a coach or player in the middle or end of each drill whose sole interest is punching or ripping the ball out. Reinforce ball security by making any ball that hits the ground in any drill of any kind a 100% live football and that every player neara the ball needs to fight for that lose ball until a whistle is blown. Too many times during indy, group and even team reps, a ball hits the ground and play stops, everyone just gives up on the ball and chalks the rep up as a blown rep. Anytime the ball is on the ground is the time to teach aggressive recovery of the football. Being a team that is ball security conscious is fairly simple to do. Being a team that is ball hawking is a bit more difficult. What you don't want are kids who go for the ball instead of the tackle. When that happens you have a lot of plays where the ballcarrier breaks numerous "tackles" which are just defenders trying to wrestle control of the ball away from the runner instead of first controlling the ballcarrier. Teach your defenders to be ball hawkers only after the ballcarrier is firmly in the grasp of another defender AND the player attempting to strip the ball also has one hand grasping ballcarrier cloth. The two person strip drill mentioned above is a great drill to teach this skill. You could even add a ball striper to a 3 slot tackling drill or open field tackling drill, instructing the striper to only approach the ball carrier once he has been neutralized by the designated tackler. Recovering Fumbles One of the things new youth football players have to learn to do properly is recover fumbles. For some kids the natural inclination is to just fall on top of the ball. How many times have you seen a player in the younger age group get the wind knocked out of him because he plopped his stomach down right on top of the ball or had the ball squirt out from a big pile? For other kids who like watching football on TV, they try and pick the ball up on the run and take it the other direction. Unfortunately in both cases, neither appproach may be the best choice to recovering the ball. It's a shame some youth coaches fail to take the time to teach how to recover a fumbled ball properly. It all starts with teaching the player how to approach the ball. He should approach with his hips low, with both hands outstretched low to the ground while running under control so he can change direction if the ball takes an odd hop or the ball is nudged away by another player. When the player is within one yard of the ball, he needs to drop to the ground with his body to one side of the ball. That side should be shielding the player he feels has the best chance of recovering the ball. With his body laying on its side, he then cradles the ball firmly with both hands and takes it into his stomach. Lastly he curls his body around the football, with his knees to his chest and shoulders stooped over, in a fetal position around the football. To rep this, just line up 2 players in 2 lines facing the same direction. Roll out 2 balls, 1 near each of the players, maybe 2-3 yards in front of them. They recover using the above technique and run the ball back to you only after you whistle. Then make it a competition, roll just 1 ball in-between the 2 players and let them fight it out. Don't blow the whistle right away, let them fight it out just like it happens in a real game. Another fun twist on this competitive drill is to circle your players in tight. Split the team into sub teams of 4 players each, assigning each team a number. If you have 24 kids, just have the team count off in the circle 1-6 so you end up with 6 teams of 4 players. Take a ball and roll it into the circle while calling out a number. When you call out 2, all 4 of the players who are 2's will try and recover the ball using the technique you've just taught. This can be a very fun and competitive game that teaches the proper and safe way to recover the ball. Unfortunately most of the times when a youth player tries to pick up the ball on the run, he ends up losing it. Consider only teaching your older and more athletic players the proper way to scoop and score on the run. You can give them permission to scoop and score, while your less athletic players take the safer traditional approach. Why let a player who has little to no chance of scoring try and scoop a ball that he has a very high probability of not recovering? Allowing that to happen makes little sense from a risk reward standpoint.
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