2/9 Training- Keep It

Sometimes he tries too much.  But when I coach, I try to do too much.  I'd rather have a guy who's an attacker rather than a guy who's not sure of himself.
-Jack O'Brien from The Assist

0-10 Tennis Ball Work
Today's work with the tennis balls consisted of the girls being in groups of three.  There was one quarterback, a wide receiver, and a corner back.  Over the next couple of weeks I want to really focus on the corner back play in this exercise.  We are going to work on the footwork and how the corner back can cover the receiver while still knowing when the ball is being delivered.

10-20 Footskills Routine
New routine today.  We showed them four basic movements with the ball and they do each movement for two minutes and switch to the next movement.  At the end they combine the moves.  We are going to be giving the girls sheets that their parents can sign every time they work on this footskills routine for 10 minutes at home.
#1:  Outside Touch-Inside Cut-Switch feet- Outside Touch-Inside Cut- Switch Feet and repeat. 
#2:  Same as above but instead of inside cut, cap the ball with the bottom of your toes
#3: U Cuts: Inside foot pass, pull back, inside of your foot across to your other foot and do the same touches.
#4: Inside pass, pull back, snake (outside inside with one touch) step on with other foot.

20-30 Receiving Technique
Step forward with one foot, receive the ball with the other foot as far away from the passer as possible.  Follow that with 3 quick outside of the foot cuts and pass back.

30-60 6v6 In 3 Grids With A Target And A Support Player

The two big focuses for us were to find the target as early as possible but realize when you should keep the ball if you can't go forward.  I wanted to keep hammering home the importance of keeping your head on a swivel and taking in the entire field.  We took that to the next level today by seeing if we could look up and tell if we were going into a situation with a lot of defenders.  If we were I wanted the people off the ball to yell "Keep It" which would mean that the person on the ball should look square or support and our next pass or two will be to simply keep possession or switch the fields.

This is a pretty advanced concept for 11 and 12 year olds and we are still at the level where putting 4-5 passes together is possessing the ball for a long time, but if we put in the work on the recognition of which team has more players in a certain area on the field, I am confident that our skill on the ball will allow us to start doing some great things.

60-75 Scrimmage

When we finished I told the group that I was very impressed with how well we did with this exercise and the concepts.  It was a good session.