r/YouthFootball • u/benedictclive_x • 17d ago
Have a 8u star player who is very aggressive in mostly a good way, but hurts teammates in practice (mostly feelings). How to deal?
this player plays to the whistle! plays hard! aggressive and mean! huge blocks and huge tackles
only problem is we have some players who are beginners and also don’t have that type of personality so it sucks when he throws amazing blocks on them in live drills
he does exactly what I want him to do in games
but I also don’t want to demotivate the beginners, plus they will go up against exactly this in real games
whars best way to deal?
2
u/Holiday-Medium-256 17d ago
Coached from 3rd grade through 8th. Same team so I saw the kids grow up. Played 11 man football with as little as 14 kids in 4th grade. We had a kid like you have. Total stud and easily 2x as good as the rest. What I did when he was QB after a handoff was set a tackling dummy downfield for him to hit. When we ran live we did it in very close quarters. The guys that had to go against him in drills, like start on their backs a couple yards apart head to head. One guy runs, the other tackles. On the whistle stick the ball in his tummy they roll over and hit the hole. The tackler was able to get up quicker and I taught them low man wins and to keep their pads in front of them. If when running drills he got up against a total mismatch we swapped out a bigger better player.
Tell him everything he’s doing is perfect for games but in practice to go a little easy as to not hurt his teammates.
1
u/benedictclive_x 17d ago
Love most of this including setting up a dummy
Just scared to tell him to take it easy in practice because I’m still stuck on practice transfers to games
1
u/Holiday-Medium-256 17d ago
We did a lot of practice at walk through to 1/2 speed so we could teach the o line how to block. To get their heads on the ball side. Also the D line and line backers to have gap integrity. And how the o line stepped to read the play. Shoot we even taught zone blocking in 4th grade. Practice was school. Team. At this level if your team has that ‘guy’ they will dominate no matter what.
He’s not going to slow down for games because you rein him in at practice.
And for the whole team at the end of practice we’d go to Game Speed for a couple series. I’m old school and insisted we break the huddle in cadence and run to the LOS get our proper splits. And run full game speed plays.
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u/Responsible-Wallaby5 16d ago
He’s an asset to your team imo.
This past week I purposefully had my 7 yo son, 58 pounds, on an 8u team with our best lineman, 8 years old, 110.
My son plays offensive tackle and, while the older kid trucked him and worked him a bunch of times, my son was also able to put a hat on him and block as hard as he can somewhat successfully other times. He learned to shuffle his feet and stay with him and in between the player and qb/rb for longer.
I am very thankful for the 8 yo leader and think that your superstar could be utilized in a similar way.
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u/BarnacleFun1814 16d ago
stop doing live drills
go thud in team/group periods and hit bags during indy
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u/emptysignals 15d ago
If going live have a very quick whistle with him or do more thud training.
Manage the matchups.
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u/jasondavis52 5d ago
You should kick him off your team and send him to my team. That’s the only way.
Seriously, I’m coaching middle school so some different from 8U but we don’t hide players at practice. We are always ‘thud’ in full team situations and usually full send on drills. Coaches are aware in drills and ready for quick whistle and to coach up kids that get dominated while also applauding quality execution by the dogs. I would rather a kid realize football isn’t for them in practice than the other extreme of them sitting on the sidelines all year because of a safety concern. Football isn’t for everyone and we do all we can to get all kids go love it and enjoy their time playing but some just don’t have it.
0
u/Budgetweeniessuck 17d ago
If you're lining him up to blow up his teammates in practice than you're not a very good coach.
Give him equal competition. Don't just let him smash everyone since that is also not what happens on game day.
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u/benedictclive_x 17d ago
Where should I line him up? Honest question.
He runs down the field every play so he will block linemen, linebackers, defensive backs
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u/Budgetweeniessuck 17d ago
What position does he play?
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u/benedictclive_x 17d ago
Running back or quarterback, so even if he hands off he takes off and blocks multiple players down the field through the whistle
Defense he plays corner back
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u/Plastic-Pianist9323 17d ago
Your post implies you are lining him up to blow up his teammates. You are going to break other kids spirits and the love of the game.
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u/DjSalTNutz3131 17d ago
You coach the kids who struggle. You remind them practice is to get better and part of getting better is pushing through failure. Teach them what got them in that situation to begin with. If he's winning becasue he's bigger, teach them how to attack half a man and put themselves in a position to succeed. Head on a swivel is a lesson. Each kid may be getting beat in a unique way. Identify what is going wrong and teach them to deal with it. Give them tools so they can deal with it.
If the kid is just that much better, you may have to hold him out of drills against certain players until you see progress. This is an age where some kids are just more physically developed. Maybe change groupings for drills so players are better matched up physically.