Team hitting and tackling are two things we always need to work on. Here are two of my favorite youth football coaching drills.
Circle Up
The first drill is called “circle up” so you already get the first step.
I like to get my best hitters to start it off.
Match up 2 players from the circle and on the whistle they hit as hard as they can.
Second whistle hit again and on the third whistle they go for a take down.
This is not only working to improve our hitting but gets the boy’s working on out positioning and over-powering the opponent.
The reason I use my better hitters to start is to get the rest of the team pumped up and to follow their technique.
Tackle Drill for Youth Football
I take two tall tackle dummies, the ones that look like punching bags, held up by two coaches.
Split up the team into two separate teams and line them up 5 yards from the dummies.
When I blow the whistle one at a time a player runs to the dummies and aggressively tackles it to the ground. They get up fast and run back to the line and the next player runs and tackles the dummies.
The coaches after each tackle stands up the dummies a few yards further down the field so each player after the one before has to run a few yards further.
After each player has tackled the dummies a few times and after a pre-determined length of the field each side of players must run down and pick up their particular dummies as a single unit, TEAM as you will, and carry it back to the starting line.
The team that finishes first wins. I find this is a great end of practice ball buster drill that each player loves to do and promotes the TEAM environment.
