Opposition to the Oklahoma Drill?

Technique could be an emphasis when doing the Oklahoma Drill, but most times I've seen it done, nobody was using the right technique. Then I think it's pretty pointless.

For years we used to do Oklahoma and other "toughness" drills on the first day of pads. Then, one year when we were meeting to plan the first week of practice, out of the blue the HC asked if we thought we were gaining anything out of it. It was like he'd read our minds. The assistants all said, simultaneously, "No". There just weren't any surprises. The guys who we thought were tough were and the guys who we didn't think were tough weren't. We started making it just another practice day. 

If I was a college coach and wanted to find out if the pups would bite I'd do it once or twice. If I was a pro coach and needed to find out who had a chance to make the roster I'd do it. In HS, it's not worth the time, IMO. 

We never base block, like ever. Never would expect one of our guys to do that. SO we use half-line for this. Go good and good full tilt and run your stuff. D has an advantage bc they know which way ball is going. I like that as the OL coach bc it puts a magnifying glass on our rules/technique. We build our half-lines up to be the biggest thing in the world. Surround the guys and everything. Looks just like the image of an Oklahoma in your mind, just way more productive in my opinion.

I like Oklahoma style drills for linebackers (2 on 1 - shed and tackle) but our DL spend more time avoiding blocks then driving and 2 gapping

In youth league, this is pointless.

I think too many of the people who are guilty of using this frequently, are the old guys who think football has gone soft and if it's not double tight bone, it's a fad. Even looking at Facebook comments, people are very quick to defend it. CUZ HIDDIN MAKES EM UH MAN!

I've seen kids get absolutely get rocked, get a concussion and miss some major time. I don't think there is a lot to be gained from the drill, other than seeing who wants to hit. But as I've seen plenty of blog posts about before, sane people don't really love contact. I mean, the kids I know who love to just go out and bang heads for 2 hours are the kids I feel guilty about releasing on society once they graduate, because they're basically cavemen.

If you're going to use it, I like to have RB, OL and DL. Adding in a LB to the mix tends to get way more free hits, and that's just not an accurate representation of the game.

Defensive players have to beat two people - blocker and BC.

So if you're going to do an "Oklahoma" Drill it should be one defender vs. an OL and RB.

Like fantom we used to do it on first day of pads along with 3 on 3, Inside-Outside, 7-on-7 (DL Pass Rush) and Half Line drills. DBs also did 1-on-1 vs. WRs (man cover).

Now we have one less day of full pads and can't afford the time. Haven't really missed it except the Old Timer in me feels like we should do it just because we always did, which isn't a very good reason.

i hate it but love board drills.

We do it to start off every season. We split up the younger guys and the older guys.

Everyone gets amped up for it, and talk smack to each other all day long. We limit the distance between the players, and the amount of reps they get.

I also think football has gone soft, and we have beat a lot of teams better than us, just because we were more physical and made them quit. First thing I look for on film is if the starting QB plays defense. If he does, then I look for a way to get a good crack on him and try to punish him from the get go. If not the QB, then I look for their best player on offense for the same situation.

Favorite is to bring an outside receiver in a short motion, then pitch the ball to that side. I have a guy that likes to hit as the WR coming in motion and his only goal is to try and rock the designated crack guy. Works best if its an OLB. Over 4 season, I can think of 2-3 times that the best player on the other team didn't make it past this first play of the game.

I don't really see how the drill is any worse than running a live team session. In fact if you are doing 2 O vs 1 D it's probably safer over all if you think of the s**t show team can be with a bad scout team. We do a vortex drill now with the groups staggered five yards apart and the cones getting wider going out. Kids love it. Want to do it every day. We don't but it's a good one we do once during camp. But we are dinosaurs who still expect all of our offensive guys to be able to drive block and all our defensive guys to shed a block and make a tackle.

The technique excuse is $hitty coaching. You get what you coach. If you allow garbage technique you get it. May as well just throw out the football & go have a coffee as coaches while the kids play...

Kids will degrade in any drill / game it's on us to keep the pace

Always worried about that drill. You have a receiver with his legs locked up, blocking with all kinds of stuff going on behind them. 

I get the idea that kids like stuff like this and hoo and haw but does it really accomplish anything?

We used a variation of the drill. It was with 7th and 8th graders. It's called the "A-Drill", because the alignment of the cones (sidelines) looks like an "A". It has three matchups, OL vs DL at the LOS, FB/TE vs LBer at 5 yards, and WR vs DB at 15 yards, along with a RB carrying the ball. The goal was to get past the 15 yard mark.

We kept it short, about 15 minutes at a time, only two or three times a season, always in the first week or so, but after thorough technique training. We really only did it enough to make sure we got everyone a few reps and saw the matchups we needed to see. We were very cognizant of the match-ups. We weren't trying to get someone blasted. We wanted realistic matchups, and we would upgrade or downgrade those matchups as necessary. Beyond those safeguards, we were also quick to pull a kid who was doing something dangerous. Usually that was dropping his head.

IIn many ways 'm a very non-old school coach, so I'm not doing it to pound on the kids. Heck, I coach SOCCER, lol. We did it with a purpose, and got in and out of the drill as quickly as we could accomplish that purpose. We wanted to know who would buzz their feet in a one-on-one blocking situation and who would be willing to stick their pads into someone to make a tackle. We could accomplish the one-on-one blocking matchups in a different way, but we didn't feel that any tackling drill could better replicate a realistic situation.

I think two different issues are being discussed here. The coaches on this board are discussing the merits of the drill as it regards to improving football performance. The videos however, seemed to have a "it is too much physical contact" slant, with of course the necessary muddling of information that media does so well (ie, showing OU running 2 on 1 drills, with very little spacing, but many other drills 2 on 2 with a great deal of spacing).

Problem being, essentially this is another way to say that the collisions that occur in football are detrimental. The key issue here is deciding whether or not an Oklahoma drill is more violent than a live game...because if the answer is NO, but the drill is too violent than it stands to reason that pretty soon that rationale just extends to the game as a whole.

so do you believe doing the drill at the start of season is what makes your team a physical football team? there's gotta be more to it than that