Ball Security Drills

Ball Security is Job Security!

Thanks to the guys from Hudl who helped me to figure out how to do these presentations with video. You can do some cool stuff with the Presentation feature in using video to teach your players. Here is some of our practice footage from this spring. Ball Security is a big priority, and when pressed for time, you can work it while you are doing something else, such as quick feet drills or during dynamic warm-up. Just give your guys a football and make sure they are maintaining proper Ball Security at the same time. That way you can kill two stones with one bird (sic). This is one way we start off our Offensive Indy time for our skill guys:





Here is the link to the Hudl tutorial on creating a Presentation.

RB Boom Drill

Boom!

Now a drill for the power backs. The off-arm is an under-utilized weapon for the RB. Most RBs know how to use the stiff-arm to keep a defender away from them; however once the defender is right on the RB, the Boom Drill is what we use to help them to run over the defender or break the tackle. We teach our RBs to use this right upon contact or immediately after contact to help gain separation from the defender trying to tackle them. It is a very violent and explosive move by the RB, especially the Marion Barber clip at the very end of the video. It happens so fast, that even though I slowed it way down, you can still barely see it.

RB Boom Drill @ Yahoo! Video

RB Spin Drill

One of the very best coaches I have run into is Eddie Gran, now the RB Coach at Florida State. I had the privilege of working an Auburn camp a few years back and learned a ton. He has coached guys like Deuce McCallister, Rudi Johnson, Cadillac Williams, Ronnie Brown, and Monterrio Hardesty. I also got his drill video which is a tremendous teaching tool. It does not just have the drills, but it shows game cut-ups of the drills actually being used in the game (I added some slow-mo and a few game cut-ups at the end of the video below, too). When you show this to your RBs, they will be plenty motivated to learn these drills so they can put them to use in the game. Then once they experience some success with it, they will be even more motivated and will bug you to practice it over and over. One of my favorite drills featured here is the Spin Drill. One man simulates a defender who overpursues just a bit and then the RB spins inside him. Here it is:

Fumble Analysis

Back in the old days before cut-ups were readily available, I was resigned to taping games off of TV to try to learn as much as I could. One advantage with the game telecasts are the close-ups which allow you to analyze exactly how fumbles occur. I use this video of fumbles to show my skill players and I relate it back to the Ball Security fundamentals that I talked about in my last post:

http://brophyfootball.blogspot.com/2010/05/its-all-ball-security-these-days.html


Fundamentals of Ball Security:
1. Two Finger Claw
2. Wrist above Elbow
3. Ball Tight to Chest
4. Tuck Elbow In
5. Opposite Hand Over Football on Contact
6. Keep Pads Low

Fumbles - I from Barry Hoover on Vimeo.

It's All Ball Security These Days! Perhaps You Need a Refresher Course!

Hey, thanks to Brophy for lowering his standards and allowing me to be a contributor and post on his blog, lol. I will do my best to not screw it up too bad.

Cripes! Let's get back to fundamentals! One of the worst-taught fundamentals IMO is ball security. Ball Security can win or lose 1-2 games a year. You can demonstrate, scream, up-down, beg, or plead, but the best way to teach ball security is to show your guys video. This is part of a video I made for my RBs last year. All of the sudden I became a 100 times better RB Coach because the video reinforced my teaching and motivated my RBs to hold on to the ball correctly. Check it out:

Ball Security from Barry Hoover on Vimeo.

Fundamentals of Ball Security:
1. Two Finger Claw
2. Wrist above Elbow
3. Ball Tight to Chest
4. Tuck Elbow In
5. Opposite Hand Over Football on Contact
6. Keep Pads Low

My next post will look at some game tape of fumbles and show what mistakes were made.