ABC Youth Football Teaching Progression


By FirstDown PlayBook on Jun 17, 2024
Youth football position coaches should map out there core fundamental drills

Think about how you learned the alphabet or addition and subtraction. You did not start at M-N-O or 345 + 230. No, you started with A-B-C and 1+1. From there you progressed to more complicated things. It is no different when it comes to teaching your Pop Warner or USA Football team. A football teaching progression is vital or you will fall flat on your face as a youth football coach or as a NFL Flag football coach.

Here at FirstDown PlayBook ,we talk a lot about narrowing down your youth football playbook based on your players. Without this, you are game planning eleven square pegs for eleven round holes. However; it does not end there. Now you are going to look at how your youth football players learn and how much are they capable of learning.

Is A Pop Warner Pressure A Good Idea?

After you have your list of what must be taught, now you want to start developing the progression for getting these skills taught. This progression is normally taught better if you break the skill down into parts. For instance, with a young offensive linemen, we would teach them their stance and footwork first. We would use either bags or do this on air.

Then we would teach them how to fit up on a block in a totally separate drill. The “Fit” teaching progression allows the young players to understand what the body position feels like when you enter contact on a block. It also teaches what the footwork and technique is after you make contact. Once the young player understands these two things you can put the two together.

Youth Football & Flag Football Drills

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Breaking your teaching up into parts helps a player focus on one thing at a time. As you do this, they learn the muscle memory required for the technique.  The act of taking your body and running it into another human’s body is not a natural thing for a Pop Warner aged kid. Breaking  it up into parts helps to keep it from seeming to be an overwhelming task.

If you break your teaching down into parts it will help the young player focus on one thing at a time. It allows you to concentrate on what needs to be improved. More reps and work can then be applied where it is needed most. FirstDown PlayBook has plenty of youth football drills to help you with your youth football teaching progression. Start planning now so that you will have your youth football teaching progression organized before you begin to practcie.

Alpphonse Falco on how FirstDown PlayBook helps him teach Pop Warner aged players.