I’m often asked two questions by young athletes leaving junior high to enter into high school football.\u00a0 Is my height and weight enough to play a certain position or what position should I play.<\/p>\n
I understand the angst that may overcome youngsters at this age as they want to make the proper moves to secure their future in the sport. Pick the wrong position and you may not be good at it or worse,\u00a0 you won’t get looked at by college scouts.\u00a0 Please see the sarcasm in the last part of that last sentence.\u00a0 Once in my youth football coaching days,\u00a0 I made the mistake of asking the entire team “who wants to play running back?”\u00a0 Nearly 30 of the 63 players that were a part of the team at that time stood up including four of my five eventual offensive lineman.\u00a0 In your youth years there is a little less self awareness.\u00a0 You can be blinded and controlled by selfish desires that can circumvent your actual path to success.\u00a0 I myself swore I was a running back forever back in my youth football days.\u00a0 While I played running back in high school,\u00a0 by the time I reached my senior season,\u00a0 I had come to the reality that defensive back would take me where I wanted to go.<\/p>\n
Let’s not wait till the 12th grade to make these important decisions.\u00a0 For many of you that may read this article,\u00a0 you won’t have total control over where you play in high school.\u00a0 Often times,\u00a0 where you line up is determined by the team needs.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 before that,\u00a0 your coach will look at one very important thing before determining where you can help the team and that is your skill set.\u00a0 Just like the 7′ footer is put at center in basketball,\u00a0 \u00a0your athletic skill set will and should play a large part in where you line up in high school.<\/p>\n
Before your height and weight,\u00a0 your athleticism should determine your position.\u00a0 If you have\u00a0 a strong arm and can read a defense,\u00a0 then quarterback is probably the position for you.\u00a0 If you are speedy and athletic then wide receiver or defensive back\u00a0 If you don’t move as fast but have size and strength you’re probably looking at the offensive line.\u00a0 Have an aggressive mindset and you’re a little crazy,\u00a0 welcome to linebacker.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong,\u00a0 your size is part of the decision making process but not as much in high school.\u00a0 Understand that you are still growing in high school and what you bring to the table athletically is what will make up the big part of the decision.<\/p>\n
What to do about the part where your size doesn’t fit the position you are playing?\u00a0 I have often found that that guys who feel they were playing out of position size-wise in high school were also not athletically fit for the position they thought they should be playing.\u00a0 For instance,\u00a0 the 6’0″ defensive end that thinks he should be playing linebacker because of his height most of the times is not athletic enough to hack it at linebacker.\u00a0 \u00a0In the game of football,\u00a0 not being athletic enough is a bigger crime than not being tall enough.<\/p>\n
Certainly there are times when you are truly playing out of position because either your team has an overwhelming need at a certain position and you’re the only one that can fill it or they have tremendous depth at a position you should be playing.\u00a0 Other times,\u00a0 your school’s scheme does not lend itself to you making a proper impact at a position you would be suitable for in college.\u00a0 What to do in those situations will be the topic of my article next week.\u00a0 \u00a0For now,\u00a0 in determining where you want to hang your hat in terms of a position in high school football,\u00a0 \u00a0let your skills make the decision for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m often asked two questions by young athletes leaving junior high to enter into high school football.\u00a0 Is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":4080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,995],"tags":[1036,1037,212,1035,689,930],"class_list":["post-4079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school","category-recruiting-tips","tag-athletic-skill","tag-athleticism","tag-high-school-football","tag-position","tag-recruiting","tag-scholarship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}