WHEN I BEGAN MY coaching career I entered the profession with enthusiasm and the belief that I was proficient with my knowledge base. During the off-season I would attend every coaching clinic within driving distance and read every book, coaching magazine and article that I could get my hands on. I did, in fact, greatly increase my knowledge of the game. I continued to follow this course each year.
During the early portion of my fourth season of coaching I realized that although I knew quite a bit about football, my players sure seemed terribly confused. I began to analyze how I was teaching my position players. It came to me during one practice in which a returning starter at tight end looked at me as if I were speaking Greek to him while I was instructing on his technique.
What I was doing was giving my players “paralysis by analysis.” A term I use for over coaching a point. I knew every intricate detail of each block and technique that was needed, but I was paying such meticulous attention to detail that I wasn’t teaching the players how to play the game. I was giving the players 8 or 10 things to remember, causing confusing and even worse hesitation as they came off the line of scrimmage (LOS).
Once I realized why I was being ineffective I sat down and came up with a set of coaching points I would stress when introducing any new technique or during drill work. When I first came up with this list of coaching points I was thinking solely as an offensive line coach. As I have researched further, I have come to the conclusion that these coaching points apply to each and every position on the field, from the quarterback to the place kicker.
1. Stance
It is my coaching philosophy that the stance is the single most important fundamental a player will learn. A perfect stance enables an offensive lineman to come straight off the ball, pull, trap, or set up in pass protection. A perfect stance for the QB allows him to carry out the correct footwork. Receivers and defensive backs cannot afford to loose a step to the adversary.
Being in a perfect stance eliminates the need to false step, which is wasted motion, thus giving the advantage to the opponent. During drills and while grading game film, always check for proper stance and make the appropriate corrections. It all starts with a perfect stance. When you can’t quite put your finger on why a player is having difficulty — take a step back and check the stance.
2. Eyes
Another one of the most under-coached aspect of our game is training the eyes of our players. Football is played with your arms, your legs and your eyes. Because of this, I believe it’s essential that you dedicate coaching time to training your players’ eyes.
Where are you instructing your QB to look in his pre-snap read? How are you teaching your linebacker corps to recognize offensive formations? These things require teaching where to look and as importantly what they are looking at.
Instead of telling an offensive lineman to take a 45-degree angle step off the LOS, it’s more effective if you provide a landmark that the player can focus his eyes on that will take him to the proper spot on the proper angle. This is something that he can see and you as a coach will have no question whether or not the player executed his assignment. It is no different when coaching the place kicker to target his eyes on the tee while in his stance, or when you are teaching the tailback to read the zone play.
Teaching your players where to look and what they are looking at is a great aid to execution on both sides of the ball.
3. Steps, Footwork
Good footwork is a habit of repetition. As far as I’m concerned, footwork is a daily must in football. If the place kicker’s or the punter’s steps are poor, then they will not be as effective as they should be. If an offensive linemen’s steps are bad, he will not create the proper angle of departure off the LOS, thus giving up leverage to the defender. The footwork of a quarterback affects the timing of both the running and passing game. The release off the LOS for a receiver is a product of his footwork.
You can make this case for each and every position on the field. The first three steps will usually determine a player’s changes for proper execution. Not “stepping under yourself” or crossing over during contact, along with the width and length of the steps are important and pertinent for each task of the game.
4. Hands, Ball Handling
What do you do with your hands? As I mentioned earlier, football is played with the arms to execute the gross motor skills needed. The hand will thus be necessary to execute the fine motor skills of the game.
This can encompass all forms of ball handling by the skilled athletes. How does your QB hold the ball while in his pass drops or while executing the option? Would your running back gain those extra two yards if he developed a great stiff-arm or forearm technique?
For an offensive lineman, the target his eyes have identified and the steps that take him there will determine his hand placement. Different types of blocks require different hand placement. A defensive lineman wants to get his hands inside the offensive lineman. While rushing the passer he may want to rip or swim the offensive player. Either way he will have to know how to use his hands.
A receiver will not get off the LOS with a great stance and footwork alone, he will have to know how to be physical and use his hands from time to time to gain release off the ball. Football, both in and out of the trenches, often times becomes a matter of hand-to-hand combat.
Developing a player to be more proficient and confident using his hands will make for a more efficient football player.
5. Knee Bend
Football is a game of explosion and leverage. This explosion is a result of power produced in the core of a player’s body, primarily from the waist down. Leverage in a football sense is getting oneself in a configuration of advantage of power. With this in mind, it is paramount that the game is played with great knee bend.
Again, these coaching points are universal to all positions. All power is generated when a player creates power-producing angles in his ankles, knees and hips. A good approach for a place kicker and punter begins with a bent knee stance. A receiver cannot make a quick and precise move out of a route without having his knees bent.
Imagine a defensive back with little or no knee bend attempting to cover a receiver. For an offensive lineman “staying low” is not good enough. To be effective he must be a “knee bender, not a waste bender.” An offensive lineman must have a deep knee bend demeanor and a wide base in order to generate power off the LOS.
A simple way to drill your players to create knee bend is to have them begin drills in a football position. This is a 2-point stance with feet at least shoulders width apart, eyes up looking forward, chest out and back flat.
To determine if the player has adequate knee bend, they should have their wrist at or below knee level. Players that learn to play with great knee bend put themselves in a position to win.
6. Finish, Effort
Finishing a play is a mind-set and an attitude that you are going to play through the whistle. Now this may seem trivial, as each coach in America would expect this, but not all coaches practice this on a daily basis. Talking with your players about finishing the play and explaining to them what this means to you is very important. It all comes down to effort.
Effort means that when the team is running sprints, it is sprinting past the line, not pulling up 4 yards short and coasting in. It is expecting the defensive linemen to sprint past the cone as they come of the last bag. It is the QB carrying out the bootleg fake, even in walk-through periods. It is the defender not just wrapping his arms around the ball carrier, but lifting and driving his feet on contact. It is the offensive lineman giving that last shove into the pile.
For players to develop the attitude of finishing the play, it must be expected and practiced with enthusiasm. What this amounts to is each player giving phenomenal effort in each and every drill and on each and every play. It goes to the nature of our game, the spirit to compete and to give whatever effort possible to dominate the man across from you. Did you ever wonder why a game that was close for three quarters begins to be dominated by one of the teams in the fourth quarter? It could be conditioning or it could be that one team has psychologically gained an advantage. In football, the player who plays physical and finishes every down eventually imposes his will on the opponent, and he will have helped his team earn the chance to win.
In closing, I hope that this article can provide you with an orderly and rational sequence of introducing new techniques and fundamentals to your players. Breaking down the fundaments into these 6 coaching points allows you to be specific while not overloading your players with unnecessary information.
To contact coach Newsome by e-mail, send to: newsomet@portsmouth.k12.oh.us