Kids learning to tackle

The coaching is poor at the lower levels and guys are always seeking to make the highlight play over the fundamental play. Big hits get roars from the crowd. It gets your teammates fired up. It gets shown on TV. Solid fundamental tackling doesn't.

No different than when Michael Jordan became really the first world-wide megastar athlete. Jordan was a tremendous competitor. A great defender. A solid shooter. But what made Jordan famous? The gravity-defying dunks. So that's how every kid wanted to play as well. Being a good shooter? That's boring. I want to dunk (forgetting the fact there is only one Michael Jordan). The result was a few generations of worse and worse shooting because they didn't care to be a great shooter (though the Warrior's pace and space approach to offense has made shooting "cool" again)

There is a lot of bad tackling in HS football, or maybe I should say bad form when tackling. Even on good teams. It's just that there is also a lot more disparity between the P5 prospect talent and the average or even slightly above-average players. So guys will successfully make an arm tackle against a less physically gifted player, take bad angles but be able to still run a guy down, Hit a guy too high but are still enough stronger to make the tackle, and have other form issues but get away with that over and over. The incentive to correct that comes once they enter college unless they have an outstanding coach in their life in HS, If they can't shed those bad habits, they end up being a bust.

I think it may be why you sometimes see obviously less gifted athletes outpace better athletes, particularly at first. They had to practice fundamentally sound football to compete with those more gifted players in high school.

Find the thigh and drive for 5


This is what we teach 9-10 year olds. They tackle better than CFB and NFL players

The massive hit on JD....that was an awful tackle. It wasnt ever a tackle. It was the Madden truck stick. If JD didnt weight 105 pounds, he would have bounced off of that bitch from Ole Miss and waltzed to the 1st down. Actually, he would have slipped the tackle if he wasnt in neurtral from the guy holding his undershirt

regardless of HS, first order of business on college field should be assessment of skill level in fundamentals. Can't tackle? Then player goes to remedial tackling class. You fix this crap in spring training, not halfway through the season!

Most HS don't do near the amount of live scrimmaging they did several decades ago. Therefore, most youngsters don't grow up learning good technique for tackling.

They much prefer the 7 on 7 stuff, which is no tackling, and only highlights the skill spots - qb, wr and db.

But, as we're seeing, poor tackling will kill you defensively.

I don’t think my son’s high school team does any live tackling in practice…doesn’t look like it. You should see them ‘try’ to block for punting and field goals…it’s like they jump out of the way.

This is just my personal theory, but the proliferation of spread offenses and 7 on 7 at youth levels has made kids want to gravitate towards offense which has also forced coaches to spend their time teaching spread concepts. There's also a lot of rules in place about how many padded practices they can have which cuts down significantly on practice reps tackling. You have to practice tackling, pursuit angles, taking on blockers with proper shoulder etc in order to be good at it.

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Most HS don't do near the amount of live scrimmaging they did several decades ago

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This. Full contact practices are a fraction of what they used to be. 3/4 speed or "pulling up" on the ball carrier is the vast majority of the team time.

practice is directed by coaches. If you want better tackling, make it a priority and the players will also.