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. 

There are a few age-old truths about contact/collision sports. While how we talk about it has changed based on health, safety and techniques, the core idea remains the same: You can absolutely lose games because you got out ‘physical-ed’ and out hit. 

It happened to us this weekend. We were out physical-ed and lost a game. In fact, we hadn’t given up a defensive touchdown in the first three games. We gave up three just that day. 

To put it into perspective, we won our first three games because we were unquestionably more physical and aggressive. This weekend, however, the tables turned. Honestly, I was very surprised, and it caught me off guard. It was like we didn’t play “our brand” of football. A little lackadaisical, very low energy during warmups and the first quarter, but no mistake, we were out physical-ed. 

As a fellow coach, I know you have been there and seen it before. The games where everyone on your team is complaining about being held or face masked? The opposing runner always falls forward. The other team is completing more downfield blocks plus after the play the number of your colored jerseys on the ground tells a story.

Full credit goes to the other team because they were very good. Look to Blog 1 from this season for background, but our league has a random draft. Still, each year some teams get lucky or have a few extra really good athletes. This is the team that has quite a few very good players. 

All that said, I was surprised at how we played and how we reacted. I thought, having got to know our kids, that we would play physical and aggressive. Maybe we struggle when someone jumps up and fights back?  

In some ways, I’m known as the health and safety guy, the tackle technique guy, the ‘don’t just smash; do high quality drills’ guy. All those things are true and very important. However, you can still coach football the safe and right way and have the goal of playing fast, physical and aggressive. I love the physical side of the game and hope to pass that on!  

You can change a lot about how you talk about football, or how we teach it, but embracing the physical challenge is part of winning football. At some point, it is a standard. 

I can absolutely tell you I played with first round NFL draft picks and ten-year NFL players that didn’t “love” contact and collision, but they embraced it and would do the job. Their competitive nature also meant they didn’t want to be physically beaten. 

How do you overcome that performance? I do wonder how the players will react. We play again on Tuesday and, because of our rule on ‘football activities’ being limited to three times per week, we will not have practice on Monday. Our mid-week game is in place of a mid-week practice. So, we go right back to playing. 

This is a super interesting idea to me. How will the kids respond? How will players of this age take it? Will they even recognize it? Will it hurt their confidence? Will they be eager to get back to being who they had been? 

Maybe, at this age, they don’t even understand the deeper connection to why they lost and will think absolutely nothing of it. Maybe they still see it surface level: good/bad, win/lose. 

On a positive note, I guess these questions mean I have my next blog topic already picked. That said, the “we were not physical enough” thoughts bring up some great conversations on dealing with kids and topics like this. 

When dealing with nine- and ten-year-olds who at most have two years of experience (many are in their first year), how do you confront the idea of physicality and needing to up the standard? Most people reading this blog of a certain generation, like me, would immediately go to previous experiences. I’m guessing they were something like; get out physical-ed, get out hit, coach loses it on you, brutal week of practice (insert lots and lots and lots of hitting drills). 

For us, not having practice before the next game, that opportunity is gone. Knowing how I think and coach, most know I wouldn’t do that anyway. We would certainly do some hitting drills and some go to ground work, but we always do small micro-doses each day. The practices are structured to limit the amount of contact a young athlete faces – quality over quantity.  

We out hit and out physical-ed our first three games. Shying away from contact is NOT our biggest problem (we do need to double check what happens then the opponent hits back to avoid shrinking). Thinking deeply about what our biggest problem is key. Many coaches react to a single data point, a single game versus a very good team where something didn’t go well. 

The question is how can you address, correct and reinforce our standard but also not lose sight of the growth of the team? We have plenty of other football skills that let us down and need to be worked on.   

We will do contact in small doses. Will we continue to work on our plan, address general errors and other things that are holding us back. We’ll grow, learn, develop and reinforce but not be blinded and run a “smash” session. That’s not something we would ever condone.  

Think and plan deeply. Maybe we are lucky not to have practice and lose ourselves. We just get to go play and hopefully have the kids leave the field smiling after a win and feeling a bit better about themselves.