Off-season Football Evaluations

As a youth football coach, when does your offseason start? Is it as soon as your season is over, or do you wait until the season is a few months out to start again? Many coaches, especially in youth football have different ways of conducting their off-seasons. I personally, and I know it’s only young kids, but I start right after the season ends.

Immediately following the season I will sit down and evaluate my football players off of video and practices through the season. I will sit down and breakdown their strengths and weaknesses of my players. I will look at aspects like- blocking technique, route running, and center & quarterback exchanges. The best part about evaluating early on is that it allows you to learn players and really understand what they do well or don’t do so well. Also, every year we will get numerous new players that want to try out football. When you evaluate your players during the off-season you will know their strengths, which will allow you more time to evaluate the new players that you do not know anything about.

Many of my coaches have their children play other sports. My child plays multiple sports, but my main focus is on the football side. So when he moves onto another sport, he has another coach that is well rounded in that specific sport. If your child plays any other sports, this also gives you a chance to sit back, relax, and watch your child play. It is nice to get to coach your child, but then again it is also nice to be the parent and sit in the stands and watch him grow. This also keeps allows you to keep focus on coaching football.