Coach ,

As the season progresses into the second half, we want to share some drills that work well to continue to develop your defensive players. Most of these drills are non-contact and save on the wear and tear of your players’ bodies.  

Drills to stop RPO

The defensive coordinator at Washington and Jefferson Vince Luvara likes the “Crash Drill” to teach his edge players to key the hip of the tackle on the block and get flat down the line to tackle the running back. He explains it here (click on image for video):

Slinging the Fit 

To stop the RPO from his 3-safety defense, Jacob Drill uses a drill to teach the run fit. It is a drill he utilizes with linebackers and secondary and can be done in a walk-through setting without contact or in a scout team setting. The drill certainly can be modified to fit your defense. It teaches your players to be sound in their fits and carry out their assignments.(click on image for video)

Pass Pursuit Drill

Just about every defense has a run pursuit drill. Colgate Defensive Coordinator Paul Shafner also works screen and pass pursuit drills to teach all defenders to get to the ball on every single play. He explains the drill and shows the execution in action here (click on image for video):

Defensive Line

Liam Klein, defensive line coach at Kennesaw State utilizes a simple line drill to work his defensive line’s reaction to different types of plays. While it is simple, he shows how it shows up on game film. Here is the drill and game film of execution (click on image for video):

Defensive Back

Just about every defensive back coach utilizes weave drills. Defensive Coordinator at Assumption University, Woody Blevins puts a focus on his weave drills so that the weaves work the movement required for certain coverages. In this example he talks about the wide weave which he uses in cover 3 and then shows it in action on game film (click on image for video):

Linebacker

Block destruction is something that Arkansas LB Coach Rion Rhoades likes to give his players a toolbox of techniques to utilize in different situations. In this video he runs through several of these drills (click on image for video):

Good luck this week and keep coaching them up!

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski