USA Football Senior Manager of Education and Engagement Andy Ryland recently volunteered to be an assistant coach for his local youth football team. A former Penn State linebacker and member of the U.S. Men’s Rugby National Team, Ryland is an expert on tackling and preparation for contact with athletes, consistent with USA Football's Football Development Model. He also assists coaches of all sports in areas of drill design and skill development. This series of journal entries chronicles his 2023 youth football experience. 

They don’t just try to push straight back 

Our young players struggled to block movement earlier, and I think I know a few of the reasons. I have said previously that most sports are balancing two opposite attacks, objective or challenges. As an offensive line player, you have to be worried about the straight charge, the bull rush and being driven in the backfield. If you sit on that power or worry so much about firing out to combat it, you easily lose to movement. If you wait to see the movement, that straight charge catches you in the chest and you get walked into the backfield.   

I think this is a very common flaw in young players. Their decision making and pattern recognition are a step too slow, so they struggle to react. They don’t want to be physically dominated, so they fire out too hard and then any movement beats them. 

The second place movement that gets young players occurs once they are engaged with the defender. Once they’ve got their hands on their opponent, they appeared to think the defenders’ only option is to drive through them. Some get really good at winning these pushing battles, but when the defender moves laterally or around, they find it challenging to “change line of attack.” To me, this means stop pushing vertically and start pushing at the angle.   

I do think a lot of this second problem is based in “feel”- proprioception if we are being fancy. The ability to feel an opponent’s force and adjust movement and attack accordingly. This takes time and reps. Experience is an inhibitor to gaining a good “feel” and understanding how to respond.  

The super competitive kid and what they need to learn 

We have a couple super competitive, physical kids on our team. They are the kids you want with the mindset coaches give speeches about.  

At this age, there are still some rough edges. The super competitive child has a few key lessons they need to learn just as much as the passive kids need to learn to be more aggressive and competitive. 

Our super competitive kids always want to go. When we do a drill or a small-sided game, they always want in. That’s awesome! The dichotomy can be they struggle or don’t understand when you don’t let them go first or sub them out. They enjoy it so much and want to compete all the time, so they get frustrated when they aren’t first or don’t get the most drill time.   

The issue is, as a coach, often the other players need more reps to help them catch up. We certainly don’t want to stifle the development of naturally talented kids, but sometimes they have done it, proved it and we trust them to do it in the game. Those extra reps are better served from a team standpoint on developing our other players. That can get frustrating for the highly motivated, super competitive, I want in kid. 

Because they are better players naturally, at this age, they can also struggle with why everyone else isn’t as good. They see a play that they would have made and instead of being able to conceptualize they are capable of more things, they get mad at teammates for missing “easy plays.” Remember, easy is relative to abilities and skills. They need to learn to support their teammates and not get angry. 

Super competitive kids can also be the ones that struggle the most with bad plays. The other team made a great play and they felt it was their fault. They miss a block or tackle. They have a turnover.   

Sometimes, these kids are so competitive that these plays get to them more than others. Learning to manage the psychology of that desire to win is an important lesson. It’s not “bad,” it’s just maturity - but it will take some guidance. The prototype aggressive/competitive player often comes with areas of need that are different but just as important as the needs of his less athletic peers.  

Sport X is great for Sport Y 

Everyone has heard coaches say that wrestling and track are great for football players in the offseason. Funny enough, you know basketball is the number one other sport played in high school for NFL players? Random fact. Not important. The point is most people position how other sports support football. We have a child on our team for the opposite reason.  

This is his first year playing football and apparently, he is very talented at another sport and plays on some all-star/travel style teams. His parents thought some experience with the contact in football would help him learn to be comfortable with that aspect and be more aggressive in his primary sport. 

Now, the child is nine or ten. Who knows what sport he ends up loving or sticking with long-term, but I did find it interesting. I just don’t hear this version of the story so often. A player and or parent thinking that their child needs to unlock some contact comfort and maybe football can help! 

This plan could certainly backfire with the wrong coaches or the wrong drill types, but a good progression of stress inoculation, prep for contact and technique go a long way. Using Levels of Contact in practice, working on competence to build confidence and dosing contact appropriately can help players bridge that gap, learn to embrace it and unlock some aggressiveness. For me, when done well, it’s just such a great learning experience to get comfortable in the battle part of sport. 

This youngster is still learning to lean into his aggressiveness and love the contact, but he is doing a great job for us, plays some key positions, plays a lot in games and contributes to our wins. He’s a super nice kid and is a pleasure to coach!  Here is to hoping I do a good enough job to keep him in football long-term and it’s not a one-year cross-training exercise.