RB Balance Touch Drill

I will be sharing some RB Drills in my upcoming posts from a dvd I made for my RBs a couple of years back.  The actual drills were done by former Auburn RB Coach Eddie Gran.  He's one of the best coaches I have ever met and has coached some good ones: Deuce McCallister, Rudi Johnson, Heath Evans, Cadillac Williams, Ronnie Brown, and Monterrio Hardesty.  I added a few cut-ups on the video to go along with the Auburn cut-ups that he already had and put them in slow-motion so you can really see the skill being performed. 

The Balance Touch Drill is a good drill to start Indy time with to help your guys get loose and for them to get reps performing a very useful and important skill for the position.  If a RB is stumbling, he can put his hand down (balance touch) and keep on running instead of falling down.  This may not seem like much, but it is often the difference between scoring and not scoring, as you will see for yourself on the video. 



The key coaching point is for the RB to touch the ground first with the heel of his hand. If a RB is only touching the ground with his fingertips and he gets pushed, he will break his fingers.

The Running Back position is somewhat difficult to coach in my opinion.  A kid can have the worst fundamentals in the world (holds the ball like a loaf of bread, awful stance, etc.) and still be a great back.  These kids know that they are already good and may not be the most receptive to coaching.  I have ran into this in the past.  I think it is due to them not being sold on what it is you are telling them to do.  Coaches today often have to be salesmen and show players why what they are doing is important. 
 

In my most recent job as a RB Coach, I decided to make my guys a teaching video, and I stumbled onto something bigger than I had imagined.  All of the sudden I became a 100 times better RB Coach than before, although I wasn't teaching my backs any differently than in the past.  The video made all the difference in the world.  The upcoming videos will not only show the drills, but also the game cut-ups of the drills being used in the game.  When you show these videos to your RBs, they will be extremely motivated to learn these drills so they can put them to use in a game like the high school, college, and NFL players that they will see.  This intrinsic motivation where the motivation comes from inside the player (instead of the coach yelling at him) is a powerful thing.  Then once your players experience some success with the drill, they will become even more motivated and will bug you to practice these drills over and over again.