How to Hold a Football

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson, for Expert Village. What we want to talk about now is when our running back is coming through the hole it's very important that when he takes the hand off with the proper hand off technique that he covers the ball with both tips holding on as strong as he can in a low position. You never want to see a running back coming through the line standing straight up. For one, if he gets hit he's going to get laid out. He also makes himself a bigger target. If he's down low running through the line a lot of times with all the congestion going on at the line, it's hard for a line backer to pick up where the running back is. So, one major thing we want to concentrate on is when he covers that ball up he has to hold it tight and cover it up with both tips all the way through the line. Once he gets through the line he can get into open field, accelerate and switch the ball to one hand. But to start with we want to show what it looks like when he covers it up with both tips, he stays low, he's going to accelerate through the line with his head down (video demo). You see how he was running low and he had the ball sealed. Even if I had come up and tried to make a tackle he has it with both hands and you're not going to have very many turnovers via the fumble if you hold on to the ball right."