You’ve been through the grueling weeks of camp when fundamentals were taught and concepts were learned. At this point in the season, the drills that teach a single skill need to be repurposed to include multiple fundamentals and techniques. Doing this saves time and allows coaches to focus on specific techniques and strategies that must be employed to beat this week’s opponent.

Before proceeding into the setup of specific drills, here are some general parameters for deciding on what will be worked and how to set it up.

Make the drill game specific. In other words, if it doesn’t happen on the field or isn’t teaching the muscle memory and application on game day, the drill has little value. This starts with making sure your warm-up drills – usually done with little or no equipment – have specificity. Most important is that the players understand how that drill appears on the field. Visualization of what is happening in a real situation adds value. In the videos below the drill is shown, then the game application of the drill follows.

 

Get more out of each drill. Last week’s post explained how to do that with two footballs. Adding a group of skills to each drill allows coaches to cover more techniques. As a rule, try to incorporate at least three skills into your drills at this point in the season. Below is a mesh drill with the quarterbacks and running backs. The running back is working the handoff mesh, pressing the aim point and practicing cut footwork and burst. The quarterback is working the hand off and fake. More skills can be added by using a second football and letting the QB throw a naked route after the fake.

 

Work groups together. Find ways to include more skills and practice ndividual skills while working a few position groups together. Here are some more examples of working multiple position groups and multiple skills. Click this link for more on this type of drill.

 

Drill with a plan. Design your drills to handle the specific needs to defeat this week’s opponent. This involves taking a basic drill and creating scenarios you expect your players to face on game day. Click here to link to an article on how to accomplish this.

Here’s what retired coach Bill Mountjoy pointed outabout  the importance of this aspect of drilling:

“Too many coaches are ‘drill happy.’ Joe Bugel said that when he first coached the offensive line for Woody Hayes at Ohio State, he came to practice with a large stack of 5-by-8 index cards containing his drills. Woody told him, ‘you are not in the entertainment business – toss those cards away and just teach the lineman how to drive block, reach block nad down block.’ How do you do this? No drills are needed – you just line a defender up on the blocker and just do it.”

Incorporating these four parameters will help keep practices from becoming monotonous and engage your players’ thinking. You want to develop players who can understand what is happening on the field on game day. You are not developing robots who run the lines that are drawn on the diagrams. Teaching them specificity and drilling it every day prepares them to win.

Keith Grabowski has been a football coach for more than 25 years, currently serving as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at his alma mater, Baldwin-Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. He previously was a head coach at the high school level for eight years. Grabowski is a columnist for American Football Monthly and writes his own blog at coachgrabowski.wordpress.com. He’s the author of "101+ Pro Style Pistol Offense Plays," available on Apple’s iBookstore and operates Coaches Edge Technologies. Follow him on Twitter @CoachKeithGrabowski.