I'll bet you're frustrated that your team's football kicking skills are leaving at least five points on the field every game you coach. Think about it, how often have you been in a fourth and three situation on the opposition's fifteen yard line with no confidence in hitting the field goal?

You go for it instead of trying the kick and don't make it. Instead of a three point lead, your opponent takes over and drives down for a touchdown . If you could improve your team's kicking skills to the point of making just one field goal and two extra points per game, what would those five points do for your football coaching record?

Let's discuss five simple tips for football kicking to help your kicker eliminate bad technique and have more success.

1) Instill in your football kicker the need to invest consistent practice time on developing his kicking skills. This may sound obvious, but too many youth football teams spend so little time working on their kicking game, it's no wonder they can't get the football through the uprights.

2) Here's another obvious one, but worth mentioning. Teach your kicker to kick with the side of the foot ("soccer style") as opposed to the "straight on" method. Your kicker will automatically become more accurate using this style of kicking.

3) The plant foot is critical. Teach your kicker to place his plant foot alongside the ball, not behind it and not ahead of it. As contact is made with the ball, the bottom of the shoe should be about parallel to the field.

4) Pay close attention to the follow-through. Your kicker's head should stay down and remain focused on seeing his foot make contact with the bottom third of the football. Help your kicker avoid a common football kicking mistake by teaching him to keep his head down as long as possible on the follow-through. Make sure the follow-through is aimed straight toward the target.

5) Lastly, many young football kickers have a tendancy to alter their approach mechanics on longer field goal tries. Help them be aware of this and teach them to keep their approach consistent no matter the length of the attempted kick.

By applying these five simple tips to your team's football kicking skills, you can add at least five points to each game's total. Many football coaches seem willing to avoid working on the kicking aspect and leave these points on the field.

If you work on this aspect of your game and invest the time to study other finer points of successful football coaching, you'll quickly and easily begin to overtake those other coaches.

Matt Zavadil and David Huizar run http://www.football-plays-and-drills.com/kick and have written the free coaching report, "5 Keys to Discovering the Successful Coach Inside You". Pick up your free copy along with one additional free report by sending a blank email to footballtips@aweber.com

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