BASKETBALL PITCH

FALCON,

THANKS FOR THE INFO. ANOTHER QUESTION THAT CAME TO MIND IS THE HAND PLACEMENT FOR THE QB. WHAT DO YOU TEACH?

VIKING

Quick question on this subject: Since I'm an old rugby player, we've used a rugby style pitch on the option. It's actually very simple (I'm stealing part of my description from Coach Falcon 2's earlier, and very good, post): "qb is carrying out the option, the ball is chest level moving from armpit to armpit, as he reads pitch he steps to the pitch back", while he pivots both hands such that the top point of the ball is pointing at the pitch back, and pitches to him, creating spiral rotation by spinning the ball with the fingers of the top hand.

The thing I like about this is that the ball is always in the QB's 2 hands, so:

(1) You don't have to worry about his coordination with regards to taking one hand off the ball or changing the position of one hand on the ball,

(2) By pitching it with both hands, the QB seems (to me, anyway) to have a little more control, and similar to the BBall toss you guys have described, throws a very catchable ball, and

(3) With both hands on the ball, it is safer for him to "dummy" a pitch key who hasn't fully committed to either the QB or the pitch back, by faking a toss to the pitch back, making him commit, then taking it up inside of him (I've seen traditional option QB's try to do this, but because they only have the ball in 1 hand, they've fumbled it while making the pitch fake).

Do any of you guys do this?

Coach --

All reads are just effectively handled by the basketball pitch. The biggest advantage of the pitch is that your QB doesn't get hammered as he pitches the ball. The sit on your heels and "absorb the blow" mentality by the thumb under coaches play right into the defensive end's mindset. He has been coached all week to make the QB pay so why put your best athlete in danger? It's not like we have 3 solid QB's in our program so why risk it? I doubt many others have 3 ready to go for a season as well.

Just have your QB attack your pitch key and when he gets a pitch indicator, he plants off his inside foot and pushes the ball to the pitch back. If for some reason there is a bad pitch., he is there to help cover the ball. It's that simple, easy and more importantly, effective.

A drill we use is a 3 man weave drill to teach the QB's to plant and pitch the ball. Line up all your QB's into two lines 5 yards apart. Give the ball to the 1st QB in one of the lines. He runs down the line 5 yards, plants his foot and pitches the ball to the trailing pitchback (QB in this case). After pitching the ball he gets into the line he pitched to. The process is repeated back and forth across the field. I use two lines 5 yards apart. and we generally do this everyday for 5 minutes at the beginning of practice.

Good luck!

Once we get a pitch key, we we turn and push the ball. We rarely get hit. All we need is for the pitch key to step at us and we are out of there. He won't be able to turn and redirect.

good luck with it!

Need more detailed information on the the basketball pitch