There are unfortunately many common mistakes that coaches of youth football teams make. You have to be able to reach out to your players and align your focus in order to succeed, otherwise you’ll end up dealing with a string of issues and problems. A youth football coach has a unique opportunity to make a difference in a kid’s life, but you have to know how to do it effectively. Here are some of the more common youth football coaching mistakes you will have to avoid.
One of the most important things to learn is that you can’t focus solely on conditioning, you have to remember the sport you are teaching. Running practices that do nothing but instill conditioning will zap your kids of their energy, focus and passion. Try to keep your conditioning drills to no more than one third of your entire practices, and use actual football drills, practicing and scrimmaging the rest of the time.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that you have to consider what the age and experience level of your kids are. If you’ve been coaching varsity high school teams but are now taking on the task of coaching middle school JV squads, you’ll have to change your approach. Your kids won’t be a big, strong or fast and they won’t have developed as many skills. Therefore you must be sure to always tailor your approach to the kids you work with so you can get the most out of them without setting them up for failure.
Too many coaches don’t plan out their practices well enough. They may have a general idea of one or two things they want to do, but in between there is lots of downtime and confusion. Every practice should be planned from beginning to end, so that is packed with drills and sessions. This will keep your kids intensely focused and will make things easier on you and the rest of your staff. Once those kids are on the practice field they are yours, so be sure to use your and their time appropriately so everybody makes the most of it.
When it comes to coaching youth football, don’t forget that you’re allowed to look things up, research the topic, read books and guides and so on. There is a ton of information out there concerning youth football coaching, so if you need any help, you should absolutely seek out those sources to help you.