Score At Least 5 More Points Per Game By Coaching Football
Kicking Properly
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.