Speed off the Ball

Coach Rockell;

Speed off the ball? Offense or defense? It does matter. Defense requires movement off movement (i.e. ball movement or movement of the offensive player. While offense (especially the linemen) move off the snap count. We all know that. How do you condition your players at ther end of practice? Do you work on the sled for your offensive linemen? That's how you teach "get offs."


There fore, make sure all your drills and practice are appropiate to what you want to accomplish. I can always tell a good d-line coach by the way he conducts his drills, by movement or is he lazy and just goes "set hut!" You know what I mean.

We need to create a "real situation" for all drills and conditioning. Always keep in mind the game situation for all positions. This needs to be addressed in off-season drills as well. Always try to mimmick what your players will react to in the games. Little details can make a huge difference in how we train our athletes!!

Coach Vogt

Coach Rockell;

A couple of things I use to help athletes with their "get offs" or starts. Any kind of towing drills you can use will help starts. Have one players hooked up to a towing device ( you can buy these relatiely inexpensively or make them yourself), with another player resisting him for 10 yards. At the end of 10 yards the player hoding on let's go of the device and the tower shoots forward.

Standin long jumps are good training for explosive starts. Have players lying down, give them a command and let them get up as fast as they can and complete a 10 yard sprint. This will also help their get offs.

Then always work 10's and 20's as part of your daily conditioning and /or warm up period.

Hope these ideas will help. I have a video coming out soon with lots of these drills on it.

Coach Vogt