• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

The Basics of Offensive Line - Drills for practice

exhawg

Mirror Guy
Staff member
I put this together for Mothra to help with his Jr. High OL. I know we have a few other coaches on here so some of you might get some use out of this.
<o>
</o> The biggest key with any OL is to get them to bend their knees. When I was in college we opened every practice with the same set of 10 yard flexibility drills. Here’s what we would do.
<o>
</o>
  • Duck Walk- squat down as low as they can go (preferably all the way down) and walk for 10 yards -down and back
  • Lunges- Your basic lunge walk, but they need to try to get the most distance they can with every step so that they have to stretch out their legs. Knees should hit the ground every step -down and back
  • Quick Carioca (sp)- Carioca with the smallest steps possible as quickly as possible -down and back
  • Deep Shuffle- similar starting position to the duck walks but they shuffle for the 10 yards. They need to keep a wide base the whole time and keep their knees bent -down and back
<o></o>
After that we would work on our steps, which I put together for a blog that I can’t find on BP right now. I have a Word doc with diagrams of the basic steps; if people want to see it I’ll post it again. Basically you need to have the players get in a good 3 point stance (which is at least 30 minutes of practice all by itself, but I’ll get to that next) and work on the steps that lead to the impact with the DL. For kids this age I would say their first step shouldn’t go up field at all and should be to get the middle bar of their facemask even with the play side number of the player they are blocking. I’m pretty sure I put together a blog about what steps to use for certain blocks, but I can’t find it on BP either. The second step should be 6 inches up field and the next step should be the impact with the DL. The biggest problem that I remember from Jr. High and High School was that they never taught us proper blocking technique. Most players try to use their forearms to block with. If you teach these kids anything teach them to use their palms to block rather than their forearms. The basic rules for hands are on the first step pull the arms back to their sides. Second step, cock both arms back with elbows at 90 degrees ready to punch. Third step explode both hands into the chest of the DL like a close grip bench press. The sides of the chest of the shoulder pads make good handles for OL to latch onto, and as long as they stay in front of the DL it isn’t holding. You need to make sure that they fire out low and keep their head up so that they can get under the defender and see if he moves. A drill that we did to work on blocking technique was to get a board like a 2x8 and line up 2 guys straddling the board in the middle. Have them fire out and try to drive each other back. Watch for low pads and hands firing. We had foam boards, but you can use a wood board if you have it, or a line on the field as well. Just make sure that both players know to stay over the board (line).
<o></o>
Stance is very important to teach young players and I’m not really sure if I can give an adequate definition of it in words. Feet should be just over shoulder width apart. I would guess that most Jr. High OL are in a right handed stance. I did that until I got to college, when they made us use a left handed stance for guys on the left side of the line. I’ll just go through a right handed stance and you can reverse it you want to get some players to learn the left handed one. Pass sets are easier on the left side of the line out of a left handed stance. The ball of the right foot should be even with the heel of the left foot and the feet should be pigeon toed just a little (stress little) bit. The knees should be bent at 90 degrees. The right hand goes on the ground slightly in front of the shoulder. This is the hard part to explain. Basically they need to be balanced in the stance so that they can fire out forward, or pass set backward. This won’t be as big of a deal with Jr. Highers since you probably aren’t going to do much drop back passing. Most players probably aren’t ready for real pass sets until 9<sup>th</sup> grade at the earliest. Back on track, a good way to work on stance is to make them get in the stance and stay there for 30+ seconds at a time. They need to be comfortable so that they aren’t falling forward out of the stance. If you’re in a stance for more than 10 seconds you’ll know if you have too much weight forward. You should be able to push them from any direction and they shouldn’t fall down. Also make sure that they don’t try to pull off the frog stance with their feet pointed outward and their butt close to the ground (fat kids like to try that one). When their stance is correct their back should be parallel to the ground and their head has to be up so they can see what’s in front of them. Their left hand should be in a fist and their wrist should be pinned to their knee with their arm tight to their side. I’m not kidding when I say you will need to spend most of a day of practice teaching the proper stance, especially if they haven’t done it before.
<o></o>
These are some basic drills that should help you get the OL whipped into shape. If something doesn’t make sense or if you have any other questions feel free to let me know and I’ll do my best to help.
 
Back
Top