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Fumbling the Football: How to Stop It

AllWeatherFan

Well-known member
DONOR
Are there any sports psychologists out there who can help out with this?

Some people on this forum have strongly advocated for imposing negative reinforcement on players who fumble the ball, i.e., benching them for the rest of the season, amputating a finger for each fumble, inflicting abject humiliation and mockery, etc.

Well, I'm no psychologist, but that doesn't seem like it would work very well. It would be like if my wife tried to shame me into stopping drinking. It seems like that would only make me want a drink.

Or if you had a basketball coach who told you in no uncertain terms not to think about whether you inhaled or exhaled when you tried to make a free throw, how could you not think about that? And what would your free throw percentage be?

But what do you folks think? Does being stressed about fumbling make you fumble more? Or less? I honestly don't know. Would reverse psychology work, such as having a contest to see who could fumble the ball the most? Maybe Coach Hauck should just laugh about it!

What is your prescription, Doctor?
 
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFVBOB5o-Oo[/media]


I apologize for using what appears to be a VHS rip :lol:
 
Interesting question, AWF. It’s like two slumping batters who look at film to improve their batting. One looks at film since the slump began to look for what he’s doing wrong. The other looks at film from before the slump to see what he was doing right. Accentuate the positive instead of berating and obsessing on the negative.
 
It is all about mental state and Muscle memory. you have to coach for and drill for it. Here is a good article on it:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/patriots-green-ellis-secret-not-090300899--nfl.html


From the article
Far too often, he has seen players fumble and then heard the coach afterward demand that his players protect the ball by not carrying it carelessly into traffic. This always struck him as backward. Why talk about ball security after a fumble? Why not before? "What are the preventative measures?" he asks. When Ole Miss made him its running backs coach in 2005, he took his thoughts and put them into a program.

[ Related: Chad Ochocinco bears extravagant Super Bowl gifts ]

"It's a state of mind," he says. "You've got to live it. You've got to put running backs in a position where they can eliminate fumbles. For instance, when they are in traffic or off-balance when they are being tackled, their natural instinct is to reach for the ground, and that's when the ball gets knocked away. If you are on the street and you fall, you put your arms out to stop the fall. It's the same thing in football. When you are being tackled, you try to break your fall. We have to retrain the muscle memory."

To do this, Wilson developed a series of drills he ran over and over at Mississippi. He taught the players to hold the ball differently. Rather than clutch it with one arm near the waistline as they ran, he demanded they instead tuck it in their right arm up against their chest and wrapping their left arm across the right, making it nearly impossible for a defender to wrest the ball away.



But simply holding the ball high against the chest isn't enough, Wilson says. Old habits are hard to break when running in games. So Wilson made fumble drills a prominent part of Mississippi's practices. Several times he'd stop the running backs and insist they work on falling without dropping their hands or practice running with the ball pressed against their chests. Eventually, he says, the lessons started to stick.

He invented new drills, like one to force players to keep the ball pressed against their bodies. Since a natural inclination for a player, when cutting to the side, is to let the arm and the ball fly away from the side, he had them run endlessly, making cuts while holding the ball tight to their shoulder pads. He also attached a leather strap to one ball, calling the device "the slingshot," then had his players run while he trailed a few yards behind holding the strap, trying to yank the ball from the players' arms. This, he said, was to teach them to guard against defenders' hands chopping from behind their backs.

"It's a learned behavior to keep the ball against your body," he says. "It's all about the ball!"

And lest Wilson's running backs tire of hearing this phrase in practice, it follows them into the meeting rooms where Wilson utters it repeatedly. He demands his players reply to his daily "Good Morning" greeting with "Good Morning Coach, it's all about the ball!" During film sessions, he'll stop the camera and the running backs on cue will cry: "It's all about the ball!"

"I tell these guys, 'Now that I've taught it to you, let's talk about ball security,' " Wilson says. "When you carry that ball, you're carrying it for not only yourself but for every teammate, every coach, every cheerleader, every student and every administrator at the school. You have to say, 'This is my ball and nothing else matters!' "
 
Maybe wrap up the ball with both arms when you are being tackled by a group of defenders.
I would hope all the ball carriers would know proper ball carrying skills by know.

I see a lot of sticking the ball out for an extra bit of yardage these days.
That I know is a very good way to lose the ball fast.
 
IdahoGrizFan said:
Maybe wrap up the ball with both arms when you are being tackled by a group of defenders.
I would hope all the ball carriers would know proper ball carrying skills by know.

I see a lot of sticking the ball out for an extra bit of yardage these days.
That I know is a very good way to lose the ball fast.

Yes, wrap. Our receivers in particular need to realize that holding onto the ball is much more important than getting extra yards.

Our returner from last week, if he gets on the field again, should know that once you break through, that someone may come up from behind or the side, and punch away the ball away-as occurred on Saturday.

Our receiver should realize that after the catch, and when you turn around to run, there may well be a defender there ready to grab at the ball (as occurred on Saturday) and clobber you.

Our receivers need to realize that sometimes it is okay to just take the first down, just go out of bounds, not try so hard to get more yardage. JLM's fumble at WI on the sideline was like that. Bingham had a fumble fighting for more yardage. Apparently, no. 6 did too a week ago.

JLM hasn't dropped any punts and has great hands on punts, but he may want to be a bit more cautious on catches.

Not getting 2 or 10 or 20 more yards will rarely cost us the game. A fumble will often impact the game.

Later in the game, and especially with a lead, it's even more important to take care of the ball. Had UM done that this year, UM would have lost only 1 game.
 
Fumbles are an anomaly Christ they come in bunches at the most disastrous times. Kinda like, when your hot your hot when your not your not.The more you talk about it, the worse it gets. When you are in traffic, Protect the Pigskin. And, run like a scalded Dog... End of story.
 
Amen, Idaho !!!

I am an armchair QB, I last played football in junior high--ran cross country in high school--what I am trying to say is I am no football genius.

But growing up as little kid, I still have these images of the Miami Dolphins and their star RB Larry Czonka running the ball with both hands, both arms smothering the ball, snug against his body.

From Saturday's game, I think I saw Mr. Bingham run right into the ND D line down on the goal line only with one hand and arm securing the ball--I guess he was going to try to stiff arm ND D linemen with his left hand and arm? While I know there are times to only use one hand--if our RB is trying to outrace an opponent's DB('s) and/or safety to the front corner of the end zone by running outside, gaining the edge, running the ball within five yards of the opponent's end zone and running it straight at the opponent's D line is not one of them, in my humble armchair QB opinion !!!
 
billingsgriz said:
From Saturday's game, I think I saw Mr. Bingham run right into the ND D line down on the goal line only with one hand and arm securing the ball--I guess he was going to try to stiff arm ND D linemen with his left hand and arm? While I know there are times to only use one hand--if our RB is trying to outrace an opponent's DB('s) and/or safety to the front corner of the end zone by running outside, gaining the edge, running the ball within five yards of the opponent's end zone and running it straight at the opponent's D line is not one of them, in my humble armchair QB opinion !!!
I don't think Bingham ever got the handoff cleanly; it was like he did not expect to get it.
 
kemajic said:
billingsgriz said:
From Saturday's game, I think I saw Mr. Bingham run right into the ND D line down on the goal line only with one hand and arm securing the ball--I guess he was going to try to stiff arm ND D linemen with his left hand and arm? While I know there are times to only use one hand--if our RB is trying to outrace an opponent's DB('s) and/or safety to the front corner of the end zone by running outside, gaining the edge, running the ball within five yards of the opponent's end zone and running it straight at the opponent's D line is not one of them, in my humble armchair QB opinion !!!
I don't think Bingham ever got the handoff cleanly; it was like he did not expect to get it.

This. It was a muffed handoff where Bingham never had the ball.

Can't say if he "did not expect to get it", but it looked like one of those read plays where the QB thought about keeping it himself and neither ended up with a handle on it. :ugeek:
 
Some teams have “turnover” chains or some other item that they show when the force a turnover. UM should have a turnover pitch filled round of “firewood” as a turnover item. In our case if you drop the ball you go bear hung that round to get pitch all over your hands, arms and stomach. Ala that helps stop the turnovers!!! :D
 
Bumped so all Griz players can see this thread title 24/7. Then, like the G-Man, I’ll take full credit when turnovers cease.
 
AllWeatherFan said:
It would be like if my wife tried to shame me into stopping drinking. It seems like that would only make me want a drink.

Well, you got part of it right for a change.

Now, if you just had a solution to keep fruit flies from my cider operation off of my wine glass :thumb:
 
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