Football tryouts are often the most stressful part of the season for many players on the fringe of the roster. These hot gruelling practices are always physically taxing, not to mention they will determine whether or not you will have a spot on the team.
Throughout this article, we are going to break down several ways in which you can prepare yourself for your next round of football tryouts.
Conditioning
As you likely already know a good portion of football tryouts involves running the players around. Since the tryouts come at the end of the offseason most players are going to come to tryouts out of football shape.
This is something you need to use to your advantage. Working on your conditioning is going to allow you to perform at a higher level than your peers during tryouts.
When doing conditioning drills during tryouts the coaching staff will notice which players are in the best shape. If you are able to bring your level of fitness to the top of your position group there is a very good chance you can secure a spot on the roster.
Building Your Body For Your Position
Another method you can use to perform better in football tryouts is to build your body for your position. As you likely know football positions tend to be assigned to players based on their weight and frame. What position you play is going to determine how to prepare and what you are going to do at the football tryouts.
If you already know what position you are going to play then you need to do your best to fit the bill. If you are a linebacker this may mean putting on some extra muscle in order to improve your tackling.
As a defensive tackle, this may mean putting on some extra body fat in order improve your ability to plug holes.
Many football coaches have old-school ways of thinking. Oftentimes they will have an image in their head of what a player looks like at each position. By building up your body to fit that image you may find yourself in your coach’s good graces.
Working On The Little Things
By working on the little things at your desired position you will be to more effectively perform in the scrimmage portion of tryouts.
The little things in this context mean aspects of your position in which technique is important. For example, if you are a running back you may want to work on ball security.
If you are able to consistently maintain possession of the ball at all times the staff will take notice. If you are a tight end or wide receiver you may want to focus on concentration catches.
Practising until you make these catches consistently is going to lower the odds of you dropping a ball in tryouts. This sort of fine-tuning is not done by most players going into tryouts.
Find out what aspects of your position the coaches value and work on them prior to tryouts, these improvements will also greatly increase your chance of becoming a starter on the team.
Have A Playbook? Memorize It
In most cases, the coaching staff will not provide you with an entire playbook prior to the tryouts. That being said there will still come a point in which the staff will instruct the players to run some designed plays.
It is key that as a player you do your best to learn and memorize everything you can with these plays.
And if the coaching staff does hand out a playbook during tryouts be sure to bring it home and study it. Understanding the plays and your role in them is crucial to performing well in football tryouts and throughout the seaon.
The importance and the dedication taken to effectively learn a playbook is something the coaching staff will notice.
If you are looking to gain a leg up against your competition learn as much as you can about your teams X’s and O’s.
If you are walking on to the team tryouts you want to make sure you have the mental aspect of the game down as well.
