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Emphasizing Ball Security – Mastering the five points of contact will help keep your runners from fumblingby: Chad MillerRunning Backs Coach, Northwestern College (MN) © More from this issue Mastering the five points of contact will help keep your runners from fumbling dropping the ball. When teaching ball carriers about ball security, we talk about the five points of contact. The first point relates to our nickname which is the Eagles, so I use the term “Eagle Claw” for the point of the football. The second point of contact is the forearm and the third is the bicep. Both are used to secure the outside part of the ball to the middle of the body which leads to the fourth point of contact which is the chest. The fifth point is keeping the elbow down, which raises the tip of the football to the position “high and tight”. The wording of each of these points may change from person to person, but the basic idea is to make these terms simple and understandable for your own players. Why keep the ball up high and tight? I present it to our players with a word picture - bicep curls. All of the players have done curls, so I explain to them that holding the ball in a bicep-curl position allows them to use more arm strength than holding the ball with their arm at a 90-degree angle. We reason that it is much easier to hold 100 lbs. up in a curl position than it is to hold that weight with their arms straight out. The same is true of the ball. Their muscles are naturally suited to securing the ball better in this position than with their arm at a 90-degree angle. Another area of importance is “breastplating” the football. When a runner is in the middle of contact or is being tackled, bringing the football into the middle of the body is critical. Keeping it firmly in the hand that is carrying it, “breastplating” it, and then covering it up with the player’s other hand will secure it even more. We do a few different drills that emphasize this method. This is crucial because the more a player practices these principles, the more natural it will become for your players to actually use them in a game. In addition, we have a few unique terms that we use in the Northwestern program. The first one is the “F” word – “fumble”. We believe that continually saying “don’t fumble” is just another negative that we would like to keep out of the players’ mind. We may talk about taking care of the football or, when necessary, we may say “dropping the football”. But as much as we can, we try to stay away from using the “F” word because of all of the negative connotations that come with it. Secondly, during practice, whenever I see a player not carrying the football with the five points of contact, I yell “security”. Reminding all of the players that we are watching and that we will call them on something seemingly little and yet so vital helps keep their focus on this crucial part of the game. Transferring the football from arm to arm is another important skill to work on with your players. We focus on teaching the players to “reach and pull”. When we transfer it between arms, we “breastplate” the football, reach across our body, “eagle claw” the football and then pull it to the other arm. Practicing this often is essential so that the players keep the ball secured if they change it to the other side of their body during a play. That being said, we talk to them about not doing this if they are in the open or are about to be hit, because those changes are often unnecessary and create opportunities to lose the football. We would be doing a disservice to the entire team if we didn’t teach all of the defensive players the ball security routine. Defensively, we stress getting the ball and causing turnovers. As a result, if we don’t practice taking care of the football, the defense may lose the ball before the offense gets the opportunity to have it. In addition, there are many defensive players that are touching the football on special teams, so knowing how to keep the ball safe is of great importance to defensive players as well.
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