What Does A Good Football Practice Look Like?
Okay, You have evaluated your youth football roster, parents and potential coaches. You are narrowing down what you want to do on offense and defense. We will look at that here shortly. Now you are about to make out your first practice schedule. Yes, you will need a practice schedule. You and Bill Belichick are no different when it comes to this. Before you can make a practice schedule though, you have to know what a good youth football practice or flag football looks like.
What Does A Bad Youth Football Practice “Look” Like?
If you have ever watched a good football practice and a bad football practice here are some things that will definitely stand out between the two. These things are consistent with youth football and flag football practices. If you watch a bad football practice you will see some of the following things:
- A lot of standing around by the players and the coaches.
- Players and coaches walking from drill to drill.
- An abundance of talking by the coaches without much player activity.
On the other hand, when you see a good football practice it often looks like a production. The team will come up with the coach before practice and at some point there will be a whistle or a horn that is blown and when that happens everyone is moving.
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The field and equipment is already set up and every coach has his or her drills ready to go so that when the the team breaks down on the word of the day it is time to work. It looks like organized chaos but make no mistake it is organized.
Now the football practice takes on these characteristics:
- There is movement and activity. It is not a classroom. It is practice.
- When the whistle or horn blows it is a 4 alarm fire. Everyone is hustling to the next drill.
- Players are executing their skills. Coaches are coaching on the move.
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This three simple things can set the tempo for your entire football practice and the mindset of everyone on the field. Your practice should be full of movement and your youth football or flag football coaches should be coaching effort and hustle as they get the players to their individual areas. Of course, in order to do this you and your coaches have to know where and what you are doing when the whistle blows too.
A Good Football Practice Does Not Have Much Standing Around
A lot of what we have looked at today is not possible unless you find some help. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. Find some good people to help you and be selective. Once you find them you will need to empower them to help you. Be sure to check back later as we will discuss how to do this with your youth football practice.
FirstDown PlayBook can help you with your youth football playbook needs too. You should consider one or two of these 12 formations for your Pop Warner offense. Tap on any one of the tiles below to visit the article describing that formation. Then get on over to FirstDown PlayBook to get busy coaching your Pop Warner team with the best football playbook available!
