Boosting High School Preparation Drills

by

Wellington W

Ball security: The Gauntlet Drill

There is nothing more important for offense to learn great ball security. Quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers should work on this skill constantly. One drill that has been used several times to improve ball security is called the gauntlet drill. The drill starts with a player protecting the ball as best as he can while running through several opponents. Each of the defenders can line up in any way making the ball carrier run any sort of patterns with the ball, the point is to pose a challenge to hold onto the ball. Make sure to take the drill slow at first, and to also have the ball carrier hold the ball in several differing positions.

Conditioning: Dot drilling

Conditioning drills are effective in training and helping athletes be strong and reactive. For this reason, coaches like this drill for its focus on speed and accuracy. The drill set up is a mat or place on the field with 5 dots about a foot away from each other forming an X shape, exactly in the same shape as you would see diamonds arranged on a number five card in a poker deck.

This drill begins with the player starting on two of the outer dots and jumps feet together to the middle dot and then out again to the edge dots separating their feet. Next the player will jump touching each dot with on leg only, and then switch using the other leg. Then continue around the dots with both legs together. The end step is similar to the first jumping jack step except that this time the player will turn 180 degrees after jumping on the two dots. Players will need to increase their speed and accuracy to be effective with this drill.

Practicing the Hand off

Running backs should constantly practice the hand off. One great hand off drill starts by having two separate lines of players facing each other: line A and line B. At the coaches signal player A leaves line A running with the football towards line B. At the same time that the first player leaves player B leaves his line towards player A, as they pass each other in the middle player A hands off the football to player B. At this moment another player leaves line A and accepts a handoff from player B. This drill should perform in a seamless motion. It is an effective drill to teach handoff skills and help running backs achieve higher accuracy and consistency.

Conditioning Drill: Up Downs

Up downs is an excellent conditioning drill that will improve reaction time and endurance. This drill starts by having the players run in place as fast as they can encourage them to get their knees up as high as they can. From time to time the coach will signal to the players, by whistle or a command, to get down meaning that they drop down do a push up and get back up as quickly as possible to run again. Because this drill can be very taxing, it is important to increase the time spent at this slowly over time as the players strength increases.

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Boosting High School Preparation Drills}