At the University of Charleston, our defensive motto is ‘Play Fast – Hit Hard.’ In order to achieve the practice tempo worthy of such a motto we strongly believe in position-specific, non-contact drills to get our hips loose and warm before stretch and our very intense pursuit drills. Our linebackers do five pre-practice drills every single day. The overall emphasis is to stay square to the LOS, stay in good football posture and gradually increase the tempo throughout the five drills to get us ready for practice.



1. Give-a-Step
The first is the ‘Give-a-Step.’ The is a non-contact version of a cut drill where the LB must start even with a long step-over bag and give ground diagonally and stay squarely behind three consecutive bags. We shoot our hands to simulate defeating the cut, but our pad level must remain steady – no popping up and down.



2. Around-the-Bags
Second in our pre-practice routine is ‘Around-the-Bags.’ Target players stand at the ends and in between three bags lined up straight across.  The LB must step forward and punch the target with thumbs up, recoil, shuffle to the next target and punch all the way down the line. As we work to our left we step forward with our right foot, protecting our outside (left) leg. We step opposite as we work back to the right.



3. Play-Action
The Play-Action drills starts with a first step, then the coach points opposite and behind them to open their hips 180-degrees. As the LB’s work on a 45-degree angle, the coach then points behind them and diagonally in the other direction. Our LB’s open their hips 270-degrees in the opposite direction (never turning their back to the QB). Finally, we finish this drill by exploding back downhill as if reacting to a QB scramble or draw.



4. First-Step
After the two bags drills we move on to the ‘First-Step’ drill. The tempo of this drill should be at least speed. We simply line up three linebackers at normal depth and the coach gives a hand or ball signal in the direction of flow. The LB’s take one quick 45-degree step and sprint straight downhill. We are on the lookout for false steps.



5. Boot-Drill
We take a good first step with flow just like in the previous drill, and then the coach reverses out to simulate a bootleg. The LB’s must take one downhill step with flow, throw their hips open to the direction of the boot and boot/crosser and finish by breaking downhill to through the LOS.