spatial awarness

I agree with you on that. I find that my guys are really smart kids but not necessarily smart football players. They just don't look at the whole picture and see what might develop. No matter how many times I tell my corner to think about the wr's alignment and what possible routes they could run with each alignment, he give up the slant when the wr is 10-15 yds wide. It kills me!! But he's a kid who probably has a higher IQ that me.

Kids don't seem to have great "football instincts" these days - but I don't know if I could say for certain that kids long ago had any that were that good, either. It may be attributed to the game evolving so much more and getting away from some of the fundamentals that make it a sport.

Kid today, I have to say, have GREAT pattern recognition skills, though. Might be from playing video games so much, but if you can show them something that is particular (certain play ran out of certain formation) they will pick up on it - getting them to tackle or pick up a receiver is another thing.

kids don't develop spacial awareness playing PS2! 20 years ago kids were out in the back yard playing real football with a real ball and running, hitting, throwing, catching!! Not a joy stick.

JD

I hated playing in the house!! I would play anything just to stay outside and run wild!! Now parents can't get their kids to go outside.

First of all....

*size has changed tremendously. In the last twenty years, the average size would've been 155lbs....now players that size are "small" - you RARELY had a kid 6'3" or taller. That 280lbs kid couldn't get off the bench - now he's making every play on the field. God bless BFS and training ATHLETES smart. No question kids are bigger and stronger - Thank GOD!

*Offenses / defenses HAVE become more complex - but assignment football and PLAYING football are not what we're really talking about.

*Video games are a great help to kids. I think kids CAN learn a lot from video games. They are nothing but simulations of the real thing and pattern recognition and the rules are some of the things they can pick up from this.

*RULES are not in question (at least for me) - we are talking 'spatial awareness', seeing how a play develops. I think the kids today are really smart kids but not necessarily smart football players. They just don't look at the whole picture and see what might develop. No matter how many times a coach can tell his corner to think about the wr's alignment and what possible routes they could run with each alignment, he gives up the slant when the wr is 10-15 yds wide. I guess what I'm referring to has to do with a quality and intensity of football played. I've seen players muff punts (without knowing it's live), leave bad snaps in the endzone (thinking it's a touchback), not chase lateral balls thrown behind the line of scrimmage (thinking it's a pass), not being able to take down bigger ball carriers (how to tackle), taking proper angles in pursuit, how to run the football (cutting back a run INTO tacklers), trying to go for "yard" (and end up in negative yardage) instead of just picking up 3 yards or moving the chains.

I don't mean to sound like a grumpy-guss, or hater, or whatever. I say this out of frustration because the Friday night product could be SO MUCH BETTER...than it currently is. It's not a coaching problem or one class problem, it's a global issue in how the SPORT is progressing. The NFL is built for offense, for showmanship,right or wrong, but the GAME is a GAME. If you talk to HS officials around your state, most of them have a deep respect for the game and how it has been passed from generation to generation. How the kids become part of a Fraternity of a players brotherhood. It's not just about STATS.
That's were this topic leads itself - it's about an overall sterilization of the GAME / SPORT. I don't know if the generations today are getting the big picture of how football is about 11 guys working together for possession of the football and dominating an opponent through team work, all on the same page, because they UNDERSTAND football. I don't believe MOST players could line up all 11 players on a defense / offense in a given play. It's THAT understanding that we're talking about.


okay - the easiest way to summarize (if you don't feel like reading above)...

Video Game Generation: What I'm referring to here is...let's say a kid plays MLB on a video game defense. What he typically is doing is RUNNING ALL OVER THE FIELD chasing the quarterback / ball carrier, lining up God knows where. This does not lend itself to assignment football and creates a distorted perception of how football is actually played.
Same thing on offense, a kid may think that all he has to do is keep running around in the backfield and eventually he'll out flank the defense when he gets the ball.

The other thing is in the sensationalization of football individualism, maaaaybe some of those other site do this, I can't say.....but (those "All Star Prep" sites / rivals.com / etc) we glamorize individuals and if they aren't being recruited to a D1 school, then they aren't anything, not any good. Every kid now thinks he's DI material, he's going pro. No matter how much you stress the "right now", kids today think that the DI mentality is what it's ALL about....that football is a big audition for "American Idol" show where they get a fat contract and life now becomes good. NONE of the athletes that went DI got there by NOT dominating their conference or having some freakish body type / speed.

Some of the greatest High School football players will NOT go DI or be pro prospects - relish those kids, for what they experience and the impact they make on the youth football / generations to come. Football is a great sport, but a selfish sport - one that can take everything you have and suck the life out of you and leave you with nothing while you are replaced and time marches on. Football is not a 'means to an end' - PLAYING football doesn't last for long, it's what you do while you play football (it's a privilege). Hard work is the bottom line of football, moreso than any other sport - it develops character and traits that make champions in LIFE - to seize the moment every day / always striving for improvement.


oh, well....PLAY BALL!

so....HOW do you T-E-A-C-H football to these kind of new breed athletes?

They are missing 'something' - how do we, as coaches, best fill that void?

I'm at a LOSS.

We lost another one last night (both Offense &Defense were equally brutal)....
For the last two weeks, we have done nothing in practice but REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW Alignment (no new calls).
We have done more indy time, more group time, more team time, watched film, did chalk talk on the board, praised, encouraged, etc.....

I have RUN OUT OF IDEAS on how to get our players lined up correctly.

The beginning of the season (first 3 games) they had no problem lining up in the exact same calls. We have not had any contrary information thrown at them. No new formations to defend. We continue to line up incorrectly and miss tackle after tackle (another thing we work on DAILY is form tackling, open field tackling, etc).

I have NO clue how to turn these guys around (nEEd hElP) ....On the sideline last night, I heard one of our PLAYERS even say to one another, "Man, it's like we have never played football before in our life!"

This is funny, the second yr of coaching for me was great, I was a jr. pee wee head coach and the only way I could get my players to relate to football is if I designed the playbooks off of the very first nintendo game that came out. I think it was madden 97' or something like that the neet thing was we went 7-3 and won the Championship..now that was weird