Coaching Considerations for Various Age Groups inside Youth Football In previous articles, I have given numerous strategies for functioning with young aged youth football players. As mentioned inside the book and within these articles, the 6-8 yr old kids are very visual and you showed you numerous tricks about how use which to your advantage. How do the additional youth football age brackets range from each additional? These are generalizations which I have found have held true with my personal groups and also from what I have enjoyed doing clinics and from suggestions from additional coaches: Age cluster strata range from league to league, these are several I have worked with: Age 8-10: While the enemies seldom let the 8 season olds to try out tackle football, you do. About 80% your 8 season olds play tackle, the smallest and minimum mature 8's play flag football. You have found with the appropriate practice priorities like those detailed inside the bookand limiting most drills to small competitive groups and lasting at the most 10 minutes, actually 8 season olds is trained to be competent youth football players. That's needless to say using the books practice methodology and not doing the 40-60 play playbook item which numerous poorly coached youth football groups utilize. This age cluster is one of fun to teach inside my attention. These are generally eager to please, have some bad routines, they really want to find out the game, they are enthusiastic and most of them nonetheless regard authority. This group responds real well to praise and rewards. They can test you like any cluster, however, less so than other age brackets. Age 11-12: This cluster may perform a of the playbook or even more than the 13-14s considering they nonetheless hear very well. Most have played at minimum 1 season and several as numerous as 3-4 years. This signifies you may have to break several poor routines or accountability standards which their previous coach didn't address correctly. They can test you and a few of the top athletes might consider and perform jobs "their" option rather than yours. It is very important to need absolute adherence to the technique standards you set, otherwise it will be chaos with this cluster. Reward, praise and punishment need to make this cluster perform for their potential. Now you can easily throw the waggle pass and use more motion. Age 13-14: The hardest, satisfying and frustrating cluster to teach. This age cluster historically has received the greatest leave rate inside youth football. Players this age begin to turn to additional interests like females, work, additional football, video games and college to name merely a some. Some kids this age with small parental support furthermore go by stages of feeling where they don't do much of anything. As numerous of these players go by puberty their bodies change, the top dominating kid is done growing and after this low and behold, he could be among the small kids. The small kid that held his own at the young age brackets doesn't grow a bit or gets into puberty afterwards and is suddenly dwarfed by much larger and more aggressive players. Some players inside this age cluster grow 5 inches and put about 26 pounds of muscle from 1 season to the next. They return with deeper sounds, skin hair and muscle tone, scarcely recognizable within the previous season. These vast differences inside maturity levels usually drive reduced developing kids within the game. Many weaker players by now figure out which football is not going to be anything they can master and prevent playing. While passing precision is still uneven you have had players this age which can throw the ball 35-40 yards. For you this cluster needs the most care, coaches are usually coach and online employee to numerous kids this age. The 1 season I coached this age cluster with another friend, it was really satisfying. This became a "B" team where I fired the whole coaching staff 1 week before their initially game. This youth football coaching staff had violated the "No "B" stacking" guideline and also "No Wednesday Football Practice" guideline. They furthermore still did not actually remotely follow the football practice methodology template and entering their initially game the bottom football plays and protection were not actually close to being acceptable. My friend and I were both head coaching additional groups, so 2 days a week is all you had to make this cluster work. Additionally, you moved 4 apparent "A" degree players off this "B" team and moved them up to their just place found on the "A" team. We had a myriad of issues, small players, weak players, unconfident players however, kids which planned to be there. At the young levels which is anything you don't usually see, several players is there considering father desires these phones be a footballer. We started with 24 kids, you moved the 4 "A" kids up, 1 player broke his arm skateboarding, 1 got taken off the team by mom for grades and something had to stop considering he visited his father inside an out state prison found on the same days as you played the games. We had just 16-17 kids inside a "B" league, to top it off the league decided to scrap the "B" league which season at the last minute and merely created another split where they put what they thought were weaker "A" groups inside. You were the particular organization which had a true "B" team inside it, the additional Orgs had merely one team, so you concluded up playing which companies best team with the weakest 17 kids you had. You couldn't afford to get rid of a individual player which season, suiting up merely 16-17 kids. How did you do it? Lots of praise, many chalk discussions, many players learning multiple positions, each player with an accountability partner like you speak regarding inside the book inside Chapter 4. To this age cluster, you explained both the hows and the whys of what were were trying to teach. Even with the few of players, you did hold players accountable to rehearse attendance and technique standards. Some times you didn't commence the greatest player. Over time you got the points over and the kids knew you might not budge within the standard. After struggling early as you expected, you won out to take 2nd place inside a split you were totally outclassed inside. This age cluster can do it all, nonetheless they usually are not able to perform and also several 11-12 yr old groups. And even though they are physically superior than the young age kids, this cluster usually has to be broken of countless bad routines previous youth coaches permitted to continue. While numerous of these players have wonderful football intellect and athletic skills, numerous do have tips of their own, which they can regularly consider to use instead of correct technique. I enjoy talking and reasoning with kids this age cluster, however, when you don't have a sturdy character and the kids sense tiredness, they can roll right over you. This age cluster can tell once you learn your things or perhaps not, when you don't know it, you will not have their regard. If they don't regard you, they can not follow you or play difficult for you. They regard knowledge and expertise which will help them win games, that's what they care about. They need to recognize you recognize your things, be confident and legitimately care regarding them. This really is not the place for a initially season coach, it will be a nightmare. I've head coached 14 different youth football groups from age 6-8 to age 13-14. Every season I merely took the team which didn't have a qualified "dad" head coach accessible. Over the last 6 years more than not, this merely concluded up being an age 8-10 team. Today that age cluster is my choice, I merely occupy the age 8-10 degree and get a new team every year more or less. As I mentioned earlier, the kids thisage are usually eager to please and a blank slate. I choose being the initially 1 to create about those slates and mold these impressionable younger football players. This helps we by sending well trained players to the elder groups, where those coaches can today not need to break the players of poor routines. Since my groups have high retention rates you end up "saving" a some players which might have quit due to less aggressive coaching. Lastly I merely appreciate coaching kids this age with many initially season players and 2nd season players entering their own, it's fun and satisfying. The "Winning Youth Football" System has worked at every age degree inside youth football both here inside Nebraska and over the country. Chapter 7 of he book clearly states what play show and preventive schemes ought to be selected based about each specific age cluster and experience degree. While there are 3 High Schools utilizing my program also, I don't recommend my System to High Schools. I have never coached at which degree and wait to recommend anything to anybody which I have not thoroughly "strain tested" inside similar and multiple cases similar to theirs. I have coached 7th-8th and lighter 9th graders and the Eagle Teams only at that age cluster have selected this program the last 6 seasons, so yes I can recommend it for Junior High groups. For those which have e-mailed me and asked me why I don't coach the elder players or even High School football; As stated above, I have good causes for coaching the young kids. I have zero desire for coaching outside my personal youth plan. I have been provided (turned it down) a nearby paid head coaching job at a Junior High with over 900 pupils. I have had inquiries regarding serving at the High School degree also. The time required to do those jobs well is huge the other I might not have the ability to commit to. My work responsibilities allows for which quickly sufficient, however, the family time I might have to sacrifice might not be the appropriate value proposition for me at the moment. The nice thing about running my personal youth football plan is I result in the rules and have zero interference from anybody, which might not be possible with a School team. I have zero aspirations of coaching certainly not youth football, my impact is much bigger and deeper inside this industry than it may be anywhere else. For more youth football coaching strategies please visit http://winningyouthfootball.com To get Dave's free Coaching Youth Football newsletter, stop here: Football Plays Copyright 2007 Cisar Administration Republishing allowed when hyperlinks are kept intact Football
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