There are many factors that go into a successful Youth Football season and coaching youth football success starts with your practices. You must have an organized practice plan on a daily, weekly and seasonal basis. You will of course need to make adjustments to the plan throughout the year, but a basic plan to start…
Category Archives: Practice Organization
What are Three Keys to a Successful Youth Football Practice?
Youth Football Coaching: How to Organize the Early Days for the Program
The days of having a month to prepare for your first youth football games are over. Now you are lucky if you get 3 weeks, after the tryouts, to get your team ready. This is a daunting task, especially if you have a young or first year tackle youth football team.
In youth football coaching, to…
When Should I get Tough on the Youth Football Players?
There will come a time at some point while coaching your youth football team’s season where it feels like the inmates are starting to run the asylum. This is especially true at the younger ages where the majority of the players have the attention span of an earthworm.
I am always balancing fun versus work during…
How Should I Handle a Bad Youth Football Practice?
It does not matter how organized you are while coaching your youth football team there are going to be days when everything seems to go wrong.
Sometimes right from the beginning of your youth football practice things will not go as according to plan. One of he sure signs that the practice is not going to…
Should I Use Email to Communicate Practice Changes with the Parents on my Youth Football Team?
When coaching youth football it is a good idea to have a plan in place for emergency cancellations of practice. Since we are in the computer age, this should be your obvious choice. Our administration has a coaches and team section where each coach can post his own notes. I brainwash my parents to check…
How Should I Set Up Practices While Coaching Youth Football?
Coaching youth football is all about preparation and organization. I think it is very important to have a consistent schedule for the practice. The days and time should remain the same. The parents can then plan around your schedule. Make sure you know the administration’s rules as far as how many hours and days per…
Should I Use Group or Individual Punishments?
There is a player who is distracting and distributing your entire squad. You need to take action, but your question is should you punish this player individually or the team as a whole.
This is one of the biggest areas of debate and disagreement among coaches. The question is whom to punish when one player acts…
Should I Do Any Conditioning at the End of Practice?
I believe in having the team do some kind of end of the practice conditioning, but not for the reason you may think. I do not believe in getting the players “into shape”. These are young kids and they are either in shape, or not in shape. There is not enough time during a three-month…
What is my Daily Routine for Special Teams Practice?
I am a believer that if you ignore special teams they will bite you in the “you know what”. In over 20 years of coaching, my teams have NEVER returned a kickoff for a touchdown, until this year. I have also never had one returned against any of my teams.
I will examine the special teams…
What Special Work Can I do in my Stations During Youth football Practice?
It is important to get individual coaching and instructions to your players pertinent to the positions they are playing. It is a waste of time to have your offensive lineman run pass patterns, or having your defensive lineman run through defensive back drills. During stations you can focus on specific drills and develop the skills…
