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Post by claudius on Oct 15, 2015 11:31:27 GMT -6
I have been coaching PW for about eight years now. The alignment / assignment and skills teaching is incredibly fun and rewarding. the team is successful and the kids are fantastic. Love them all and it is a great experience. However, where I feel like I am falling down as a coach is the teaching part / ability to impart information to the kids in the best and most efficient manner possible.
As a recent practice I had play charted an upcoming opponents offensive formations. They basically have two base alignments which they vary with shotgun "I" and pistol. We lined up the defense and ran skelly with the offensive skill players moving around to demonstrate the various alignments and plays for the defense and to try to give them reads and tendencies of the opponents offense. The period was about twenty minutes of practice time. While I think we imparted most of the important reads to the kids, I felt defeated after the period was over. I felt like I talked too much to the kids - who are at the 11-13 year old age we coach, visual and tactile learners. I tried to quiz them about what I was saying and physically demonstrate to keep them involved - but I saw lots of glazed over eyes.
So, my question is (1) how do you use your breaking down of the opponents offense to help our your defense and (2) how best do you impart and implement the information to youth football players. I appreciate the help.
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Post by 33coach on Oct 15, 2015 16:36:02 GMT -6
I have been coaching PW for about eight years now. The alignment / assignment and skills teaching is incredibly fun and rewarding. the team is successful and the kids are fantastic. Love them all and it is a great experience. However, where I feel like I am falling down as a coach is the teaching part / ability to impart information to the kids in the best and most efficient manner possible.
As a recent practice I had play charted an upcoming opponents offensive formations. They basically have two base alignments which they vary with shotgun "I" and pistol. We lined up the defense and ran skelly with the offensive skill players moving around to demonstrate the various alignments and plays for the defense and to try to give them reads and tendencies of the opponents offense. The period was about twenty minutes of practice time. While I think we imparted most of the important reads to the kids, I felt defeated after the period was over. I felt like I talked too much to the kids - who are at the 11-13 year old age we coach, visual and tactile learners. I tried to quiz them about what I was saying and physically demonstrate to keep them involved - but I saw lots of glazed over eyes.
So, my question is (1) how do you use your breaking down of the opponents offense to help our your defense and (2) how best do you impart and implement the information to youth football players. I appreciate the help. I had a very similar discovery when i went from HS to MS. at HS, every Monday was "Opp Alignment" day - where we went through every formation, motion, shift that we would see that week. we did it on Monday so that we could rep against it all week. it was a boring period but really important - especially for our scout guys because they needed to run this all week. my first year in MS, i tried this because i thought "oh it will be easy, there is less to know/remember." - but i learned that while the offenses we face are simpler, so are the kids im teaching them to. they couldn't stay focused - and the ones that did were half asleep. so since then, i've done my teaching in a 'live' or 'thud' period - and the teaching is short: -- teach a formation check - run a few plays -- stop, correct, repeat -- repeat with a new formation.
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Post by newt21 on Oct 16, 2015 7:11:47 GMT -6
We do a chalk talk before we hit the field, and we review everything every day. When I say "everything" I mean the opponents top formations as well as our adjustments. After day 1 the kids are responsible for teaching me what they do.
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Post by claudius on Oct 16, 2015 7:55:47 GMT -6
Beyond the fact that after eight years I still feel like I don't know di@k about coaching football - almost like I am a pretender to knowledge, I need to get the teaching part better.
I use a 3'x4' white board, handouts and live teaching. We don't really have "classroom" periods. We tried that and it proved a waste of time in outcomes. So far the best thing we have done is line up trashcans as the TGCGT and use skeleton skill players to move in front of the starting D to demonstrate. The kids get that - but when we start talking tendencies - sometimes as simple as "Quarterback's first steps lead you to the ball" or "Where the Slot/Power goes the ball goes" most of the kids just seem to lose focus. It could just be the age group.
I am looking for ideas to make it more fun and involving for the boys. Standing and watching never works well at this level - I lose their attention fast.
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Post by bigshel on Oct 16, 2015 11:30:33 GMT -6
As a youth coach, we don't really get classroom time, but some years ago, I started doing "organized" water breaks where everyone gets their water and takes a knee while I whiteboard the upcoming opponent (they drink while I talk; all eyes on me). The whole thing takes maybe 10 minutes. It forces me to stay on point, cover only major points and keep it brief. I find they're more attentive if the last five minutes before a break is something high intensity/high speed/high number of reps like no-huddle or quick huddle drills with 20 yard get-offs, or stance and get-off drills. With them somewhat gassed/winded, there tends to be less grab-a$$, and more attention paid.
From there, it's just the rest of the old recipe "chalk it/talk it/ walk it/rep it", with heavy emphasis on walking it (even bird-dogging it) before trying to rep it.
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Post by coachjtm on Oct 16, 2015 13:10:06 GMT -6
As a youth coach, we don't really get classroom time, but some years ago, I started doing "organized" water breaks where everyone gets their water and takes a knee while I whiteboard the upcoming opponent (they drink while I talk; all eyes on me). The whole thing takes maybe 10 minutes. It forces me to stay on point, cover only major points and keep it brief. I find they're more attentive if the last five minutes before a break is something high intensity/high speed/high number of reps like no-huddle or quick huddle drills with 20 yard get-offs, or stance and get-off drills. With them somewhat gassed/winded, there tends to be less grab-a$$, and more attention paid. From there, it's just the rest of the old recipe "chalk it/talk it/ walk it/rep it", with heavy emphasis on walking it (even bird-dogging it) before trying to rep it. I really like this. We generally don't run organized water breaks. We're in Texas we literally run water the whole practice (average practice start temp was 97 degrees last season with the first couple of weeks being 103-105 and the last few in the mid to upper 80s). I may implement this prior to the playoffs.
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