Coaching Youth Football: Old Coach's Manual for New Coaches

This is a fantastic book for youth football coaches. It is extremely thorough and any coach that reads and follows the advice, practice plans and the playbook closely for their team should have a winning program.The author starts with an excellent chapter on his approach to coaching youth football, making it fun for the kids but also teaching proper technique and teamwork while still playing to win. That's a hard balance but the author does a nice job of breaking it down here.The next two chapters describe how to organize practices and drills to make practice fun while teaching technique and proper football skills. The comprehensive set of drills are well described with diagrams and each have coaches comments to add color from the author's experience on how to make the best usage of these drills.Chapters 4-8 then describe how to teach offense, defense, usage of scrimmages during practice, game planning(something many youth football coaches do not do) and what to do on game day. These chapters not only contain some nice stories from the author's coaching career but also very detailed advice on teaching and building an offense and defense in a phased approach so as to not overwhelm the kids and how to successfully integrate scrimmages into practice time while using them as teaching moments. The game plan and game day chapters both add a lot of insight on how a coach should prepare for each game as well as how to prepare the team.The latter part of this manual contain forms, well thought out practices plans that are easy to follow and probably the most comprehensive playbook in any youth football book out there.The playbook is so complete that it could be it's own book and sold separately. It is also broken into chapters. The play description chapter explains each type of play and their usage in a clear way for even novice coaches to understand the strategy behind them. The playbook uses a standard numbering system and multiple formation which are both well diagrammed. There are defensive formations and then approximately 30-35 running plays and 10 passing plays. I find this to be a perfect amount for kids to wrap their heads around without confusing them. The diagrams are large and easy to read.Overall, this is a tremendous manual for coaching youth football and as I said earlier in my review, if you follow everything this book describes you will be well on your way to having winning teams and more importantly having fun with the kids.

The book is for the dad who has never played football and who has decided to coach his son's team. The first part about how to interreact with the youth players is quite good and very useful.The drills can be found on line at a variety of free locations, especially on YouTube. The wishbone offense is a questionable choice for youth as a starter offense. A simpler offense would be a split back in conjunction with the I as the power offense. The defenses used by many youth teams are the 6-2 and the 5-3.

This manual provides a complete "how to" when it comes to coaching youth football. I have been involved with youth sports for over 40 years and I always enjoy learning how others have handled their coaching vocation or avocation. Coach Riina puts together a comprehensive guide that speaks to the emotional and physical rigors of youth football. Schedules, offensive and defensive formations, drills, time frames, plays....did I say comprehensive? This is a must read whether new or already established in the coaching profession. To paraphrase Coach Riina, winning and having fun are not mutually exclusive and the payoff may be years down the road when a former player sees you and says....Hi coach!"

Easy book to follow for coaches new to youth football. Good illustrations!

Alot of good information

Great book for new coaches. Sets up complete program from star to finish. Complete with drils and plays.

Great book! Well written and informative!Highly recommend.