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Post by carookie on Sept 23, 2019 20:43:38 GMT -6
I am coaching a small team in numbers, so small that a couple months ago I doubted we'd be able to field a team. As the season started, my goal was just to make it through the season healthy; but lo and behold we've gone on a nice streak here and if we can win two of our remaining games we'd make the playoffs. Problem is, we have guys getting hurt (mostly off the field, or lingering old injuries) and each week we go into game day wondering if we will even have enough to play.
As such, I have begun to trim down practice time and physicality, lots of walk through, or half speed stuff just to keep guys healthy. However, so many of our guys are brand new (roughly 1/3 didnt show up until the start of the school year) and are very raw, especially tackling. Our newbies miss a ton of tackles in game and our vets carry the load, I know there is more to developing tackling skills than going live in practice, but for such raw players there is a benefit to practicing live hitting.
So here is my question, how do you find the line between rest and rust? Between keeping your guys healthy and developing skills attached to physicality? How much live hitting do you do in practice, when you are only plus 3-5 on the bench?
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Post by coachscdub on Sept 23, 2019 20:54:48 GMT -6
You can still practice tackling without going full live. Some of the best tackling drills i've seen/done involve doing them without pads at a walking/jogging tempo. If you only have a few guys on the bench you cant go full contact very often. Try and focus on honing skills in as safe of a way as possible, and create situations where those newbie kids can get experience.
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Post by CS on Sept 24, 2019 4:18:17 GMT -6
You can be physical and not beat up your kids. We “pop” once a week with the kids in a controlled drill with a quick whistle. Try to keep everyone up.
I believe that hitting is unnatural and the kids have to get used to doing it. I also believe that if you aren’t beating the $hit out of them that it conditions their body for contact. Granted we aren’t lining them up in Oklahoma but we want to see them uncoil on a target that can move like they see in a game.
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Post by doitforthekids on Sept 24, 2019 6:47:09 GMT -6
Football is a game built on aggressive contact, pad level, and relentless feet in BOTH blocking and tackling. Injuries occur most often through poor execution of blocking/tackling (helmet-helmet contact or heads being down) and when falling on the ground. Therefore, we hit and drive to the whistle EVERYDAY and EVERY DRILL. We condition and discipline proper blocking/tackling and re-enforce the aspects that REALLY matter. By doing so, we stay amazingly healthy and hit every day without ever going "live".
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Post by CoachMikeJudy on Sept 24, 2019 8:27:00 GMT -6
We have went round-and-round with this topic as a staff ourselves. Some years we didn't live tackle once...other years we tackle live 1-2 days per week. I don't think there is an easy answer here. The best advice I can give you is that you don't need to go live just to go live- like any drill you do at practice, the question should be asked "what are we trying to get out of this?"
Two years ago we didn't go live at all. Won a state championship. Top 3 defense in state. Kid's didn't need live...we hit the tackle wheel and sleds a ton for our tackling.
Last year we tackled 2x's per week- finished 3-6 with injuries to every LB in the program. Not a good season defensively.
This year we go 1-2 periods of LIVE on Tuesdays. Just held the defending state champs to 6 total yards in a game.
In the years where you have a veteran, seasoned defense I would say you don't need to go live as much. If you have a bunch of rookies, then you may need to crank it up a bit.
Also, our "LIVE" days will only be 2 periods live at the most...typically D team and some sort of situational/competitive drill. 15-25 mins total.
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Post by Defcord on Sept 24, 2019 8:52:45 GMT -6
I hate going live in practice, especially when the scout team struggles. Our Dline makes some of the tackles, our LBs make some of the tackles and our DBs get almost zero work. Most of the time we tap the near hip then simulate wrap, squeeze and finish with your feet. The ball carrier keeps running till he clears the entire defense so it builds in pursuit and cutback work for the second and third levels. Since we started doing this out defense has gotten significantly better at tackling.
I am at a new school this year and everyone wants to get in and bang live every team period to the ground.There is a bit of a mental aspect to it. I don't want our kids and a couple of our defensive coaches to feel unprepared so we will do some live work a couple periods a week. But I would like to slowly do less and less as the year progresses. We also will do angle tackling live every other week in Indy periods so they can feel the contact still.
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Post by aceback76 on Sept 24, 2019 9:02:11 GMT -6
I am coaching a small team in numbers, so small that a couple months ago I doubted we'd be able to field a team. As the season started, my goal was just to make it through the season healthy; but lo and behold we've gone on a nice streak here and if we can win two of our remaining games we'd make the playoffs. Problem is, we have guys getting hurt (mostly off the field, or lingering old injuries) and each week we go into game day wondering if we will even have enough to play. As such, I have begun to trim down practice time and physicality, lots of walk through, or half speed stuff just to keep guys healthy. However, so many of our guys are brand new (roughly 1/3 didnt show up until the start of the school year) and are very raw, especially tackling. Our newbies miss a ton of tackles in game and our vets carry the load, I know there is more to developing tackling skills than going live in practice, but for such raw players there is a benefit to practicing live hitting. So here is my question, how do you find the line between rest and rust? Between keeping your guys healthy and developing skills attached to physicality? How much live hitting do you do in practice, when you are only plus 3-5 on the bench? We have SOME "physicality" in our practices on Monday (Defense), Tuesday (Offense), just enough to "stay sharp". A few guidelines: 1. Every OTHER period in practice (never 2 periods in a row). 2. Stay above the waist in hitting. 3. Tackling drills (Monday) usually anywhere from 0 to 3 step drills (where no one builds up a "full head of steam"), which taught our tackling with practically no risk of injury. We picked these up from Ara Parseghian on a visit to a Notre Dame practice. 4. ETC. |
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Post by coachcb on Sept 24, 2019 9:41:58 GMT -6
You can be physical and not beat up your kids. We “pop” once a week with the kids in a controlled drill with a quick whistle. Try to keep everyone up. I believe that hitting is unnatural and the kids have to get used to doing it. I also believe that if you aren’t beating the $hit out of them that it conditions their body for contact. Granted we aren’t lining them up in Oklahoma but we want to see them uncoil on a target that can move like they see in a game.
Agreed. We're basically in the same situation right now. Our numbers aren't awful for a small school but injuries have had us starting inexperienced freshmen and sophomores, out of necessity. Thankfully, we were able to win our last two games, keep the rest of our starters healthy and we'll have the rest of out guys back.
With that being said, we're still spooky with injuries. Here's some ways we've -tried- to control it:
1. Hawk tackling. I used to hate this form of tackling but now we love it. We can still rep it daily with limited risk of injury. We have to dial back on the speed of the drills but we can still incorporate proper angles and form.
2. Shedding and blocking: still done full tilt. PERIOD. The kids have to hit. IME, it only takes about a week of limited shedding and blocking contact for the kids to lose the fundamental skill.
3. We limit scout team stuff to "tag". We're looking for proper angles on the ball carrier but no one goes to the ground. We have the would-be tackler get low and tag off on the hip of the ball carrier they'd be responsible for tackling through. We expect them to break down, tag off on the correct hip and we blow the whistle. We can't do "thud" as the Hawk tackling involves driving through the thighs. We will have the guys show a "thud" profile tackle if the ball is coming straight at them.
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Post by 60zgo on Sept 27, 2019 9:06:14 GMT -6
When you have a limited roster you have to find what works for your kids and their mentality. Two years ago we were in full pads every day and hit the 7 man sled the day before the game. This year we are shoulder pads and shorts two days a week and helmets only two days a week. We went 9-1 one year in helmets every day. If that group had ever put on pads they would have killed each other. If you have a ton of younger kids with limited experience you may need more contact until they get the "feel of the game". Experienced kids, not so much.
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Post by IronmanFootball on Sept 27, 2019 11:47:56 GMT -6
Our practice rules when I coached ironman teams was never cut and never dive at knees. We wore full gear every day but Thur, even though it was shorts, girdle and vb knee pads.
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Post by iacoachq on Oct 21, 2019 9:18:41 GMT -6
One of my favorite drills to instill contact toughness, especially for tackling, is called Duck Hunt.
We have 2 high jump pads that we use. We put a player in front of the HJ pad with a hand shield. The hands shield is held chest high right in front of their body. Shielded player is facing away from the HJ pad towards the tackler. The tackler is anywhere from 5-10 yards away and running towards the shielded player in front of the pad.
The shielded player will move laterally (shuffle sideways) in front of the pad. The tackler must sprint and break down correctly to run through the shield and player while driving them onto the HJ pad. Can also do it as a sideline tackle drill too.
We usually do this on Mondays. We've never had a kid hurt doing this drill. The kids love it because they get to tee off on each other without getting killed. We've seen a drastic improvement with our physicality transfer to practice and games within our Hawk Tackling system once instituting this drill maybe 3-4 years ago. Our kids become more confident and physical ball carriers because they are getting hit too without hurting them.
Simple way to get kids to understand hitting doesn't hurt as much when you're the hammer and not the nail.
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Post by silkyice on Oct 21, 2019 10:01:16 GMT -6
One of my favorite drills to instill contact toughness, especially for tackling, is called Duck Hunt. We have 2 high jump pads that we use. We put a player in front of the HJ pad with a hand shield. The hands shield is held chest high right in front of their body. Shielded player is facing away from the HJ pad towards the tackler. The tackler is anywhere from 5-10 yards away and running towards the shielded player in front of the pad. The shielded player will move laterally (shuffle sideways) in front of the pad. The tackler must sprint and break down correctly to run through the shield and player while driving them onto the HJ pad. Can also do it as a sideline tackle drill too. We usually do this on Mondays. We've never had a kid hurt doing this drill. The kids love it because they get to tee off on each other without getting killed. We've seen a drastic improvement with our physicality transfer to practice and games within our Hawk Tackling system once instituting this drill maybe 3-4 years ago. Our kids become more confident and physical ball carriers because they are getting hit too without hurting them. Simple way to get kids to understand hitting doesn't hurt as much when you're the hammer and not the nail. Any chance you can video that and post tomorrow?? |
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Post by iacoachq on Oct 21, 2019 12:45:28 GMT -6
One of my favorite drills to instill contact toughness, especially for tackling, is called Duck Hunt. We have 2 high jump pads that we use. We put a player in front of the HJ pad with a hand shield. The hands shield is held chest high right in front of their body. Shielded player is facing away from the HJ pad towards the tackler. The tackler is anywhere from 5-10 yards away and running towards the shielded player in front of the pad. The shielded player will move laterally (shuffle sideways) in front of the pad. The tackler must sprint and break down correctly to run through the shield and player while driving them onto the HJ pad. Can also do it as a sideline tackle drill too. We usually do this on Mondays. We've never had a kid hurt doing this drill. The kids love it because they get to tee off on each other without getting killed. We've seen a drastic improvement with our physicality transfer to practice and games within our Hawk Tackling system once instituting this drill maybe 3-4 years ago. Our kids become more confident and physical ball carriers because they are getting hit too without hurting them. Simple way to get kids to understand hitting doesn't hurt as much when you're the hammer and not the nail. Any chance you can video that and post tomorrow?? Yep, I'll see if I can grab a couple shots of it today. Anyone who wants to see it, shoot me a PM with your google e-mail. I'll share it with you on Google Drive. |
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Post by dsealey on Oct 23, 2019 11:08:03 GMT -6
I dont think a drill can make a player "tougher", physically or mentally.
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