As offenses continue to move to more sophisticated schemes that require defenses to defend multiple philosophies and personnel groupings, it becomes easy for coordinators and coaches to spend a majority of the time focusing on defending plays instead of coaching fundamentals.

A large chunk of time early in fall camp is often dedicated to fundamentals, but as the season extends, the demand on practice time forces coaches to utilize time on the game plan.

Developing position-specific skill sets for players should be a constant theme throughout the season. By creating a drill checklist specific to position, coaches can stay on track.

It is easy for a coach to fall victim to trying to do too much in too little time and not getting the results they set out for.

Here is a drill checklist to identify the skills that need to be practiced as part of the game plan.

Footwork

All positons in football require both basic and specific footwork in order to be successful. The most basic fundamentals include agilities through bags, ladders, cones or other markings. Not all positions are asked to perform the same type of agilities, so the angles and spacing should be varied to fit the individuals.

As coaches get more specific with their position groups, footwork should veer into stance and start. For example, a defensive lineman may spend time on stance, start and get off as opposed to a defensive back who works on backpedal and multiple angle breaks.

A great rule of thumb for young coaches is to teach from the “feet to the eyes.” By doing so, you are making sure to cover every aspect of what the player needs to accomplish.

Connecting the feet to the eyes in footwork helps players graduate to the first step based on how their assignment key moves and how they are forced to react.

Hand placement

A major part of every offensive scheme is accounting for every defensive player. Ideally, offenses strive to have one more player in a key space than the defense. As a result, it is not always easy to determine what types of blocks defensive players will see.

Defensive players will have to strike oncoming blockers from various distances and angles. Although the approach differs by position, there are fundamental similarities regarding hand placement and the quickness of the strike of the hands on the blocker.

A six-point progression drill with hands, knees and feet on the ground helps players focus on hand placement while introducing the concept of hip roll and leverage. Depending on the position, players then move to three- or two-point progression to introduce the footwork approach to the hand placement.

Block reaction and block defeating

Defensive football is made up of three levels of defenders – linemen, linebackers and secondary.

Each position sees different blocks, but the group that sees the widest variety of blocks at the point of attack is on the first level – the linemen.

Every drill checklist should include all types of blocks your players will see. Routinely, defensive lineman see base, reach and veer blocks in the run game and pass sets. These are often introduced early in the season, but the application of these blocks within a scheme could vary from week to week.

Instituting varied levels of contact also helps with introducing repetition without having to work in live situations. Working on air and versus bags to review block reaction helps to reduce the amount of contact as well as focus on the teaching. By instituting a drill checklist, coaches remain on task when practice planning.

Second- and third-level defenders change their reaction to blocks primarily because of the amount of space they have to defend. They truly have to work together to close the space and create leverage. With so much space to cover, blockers can come from every angle, and ball-carriers can cut in any direction. This necessitates that drills be group-focused, such as half line or pod drills presenting group concepts.

Counters to bad position

Although we would like to think that we live in a perfect world when it comes to our drill work, that is rarely a reality. It is just as important to train players to counter in their drill work, in order to get back into the play when they get into bad position.

This is most commonly associated with block recognition and block defeating because doing it wrong can quickly take you out of a play.

Tackling and takeaway

Coaches are constantly harping on players to finish the play, but what is the goal? The goal on defense is to stop the forward progress of the player and/or take the ball away. These skills need to become a repetitive action.

Tackling and takeaway drills tend to be staples in the preseason but to be great at them, coaches must make them part of the culture of the program.

The old adage is that “practice makes perfect.” Coaches often take that saying one step forward by saying “perfect practice makes perfect.”

Part of great practice is a great practice plan, and that all starts with knowing what players need to be successful.

Vince DiGaetano is the football program analyst at Wagner College. A USA Football Master Trainer, he was a finalist for the 2014 American Football Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year award. Before Wagner, he was the linebacker coach at Nassau Community College, the defensive coordinator at SUNY-Maritime and the defensive coordinator at DeWitt Clinton (N.Y.) High School. DiGaetano also is a recruiting coordinator for the Long Island and New York Public School Athletic League.