Youth Football Coaching Drills – Red Rover and Sharks & Minnows

Try these youth football coaching drills to keep your younger players engaged and motivated. Keep your practices fun and the results will speak for themselves.

Tackling Sharks & Minnows
One of the football drills I love to do with the younger kids (7 – 9) is a variation of Sharks and Minnows but with tackling.

Divide the team in ½ and setup 2 20yard coned areas.

1 kid from each group becomes the 1st shark; all of the other kids line up at one end of the 20 and have to run to the other (2 groups going at the same time requires 40yds of field).
Keep track of who makes the most tackles.

When you get down to the last 2 minnows in each group the 4 combine. I then take the 12 best tacklers from the 2 groups (hopefully 6 from each) and they compete until there is one left.

Each kid that does not make a tackle is eliminated last man standing wins!

Red Rover
Another drill I love for the younger kids is Red-Rover–

Line them up 20yds apart.
Split the team in 2.
They line-up shoulder-to-shoulder.
The runner has to not only get through the tackler to stay in the game but he has to get through the other teams line to score (team with the highest score at the end wins).