For those who have the DC wing-T

I wrote this post on a DW board but it probably deserves to be over here. So I'm reposting it. It tells you how I coach my wing T fullback. Coach Tom had posted on the other board for the need for a FB to stay low, keep his head up, and to use short, quick steps to accelerate. Here is my response:

I agree with Coach Tom. However, we usually work his "theory" into our drills in order to make theory a reality. First, Coach Tom, said, "head up". To coach getting a FB's "head up" stand in front of the handoff point and watch the FB's eyes for the handoff. If his eyes are on the ball for the handoff, you're screwed. His head is not up and he's not looking where he's going. To correct this, as the FB comes forward for the handoff, stand in front of him and hold up 1, 2, or 3 fingers and make him count them and call it out. He can't count fingers and look at the ball at the same time. You have to reinforce this drill daily. If you stop running it, he'll start looking at the handoff again.

Next (or even at the same time) have two coaches or players hold a ten foot section of PVC pipe across the LOS at the neck height of your FB. As he takes the the hand off and counts fingers, he must pass beneath the pipe without striking it with his helmet. After about 100 tries (Yes, he'll knock it all over the place to begin with) he is now staying low. Again, reinforce this daily. If you don't, he'll soon be running "straight up" again.

Coach Tom is also correct that speed is critical. The player should know that if he hits a hole with speed, the hole will STILL BE THERE when he arrives. Hitting it slow has no such guarantee. If there is no hole and he hits the line with speed, he should still at least get something. Otherwise, if he hits it slow and there's no hole, there's no gain. Our FB is told this daily and must repeat it back.
To get his speed up, Coach Tom is right to have him start with short, choppy steps. My FB does that for his first three steps. He then LENGTHENS his stride after he crosses the LOS and makes his cut (We tell him to try and bust it outside once he gets past the DT's). In practice, we don't let him come back to the practice huddle until he reaches full speed, so he learns to accelerate rapidly in order to be able to come back sooner.

A good FB understands "freeze" blocking. When busting it up the middle, my FB runs straight at the nearest LBer. This freezes the LBer who waits to see which way he'll cut and, while he's waiting, the lineman blocking him has an easy target. The FB cuts at the last second off the block, comes out of his low stance, lengthens his stride, AND BLOWS BY!
You can simulate this by standing behind a tackling dummy in a 5-2 inside LBer position. The FB must run straight at the bag. The coach behind the bag now shows his face to the runner on one side of the bag or the other and the FB must cut the other way (About 2 out of every 3 such drills we'll try and get the FB to cut outside because, given his choice, this is where we want him to go.). If you want to combine drills, instead of showing your head from behind the bag, show your hand and make him count fingers.

We aren't finished yet! If you play FB for me, you are a tank on the loose creating damage and mayhem. We still have three more points to cover. Standing behind the coach behind the bag is another coach holding a helmet to simulate a FS. As the FB cuts off the bag, this coach steps towards the FB (going the opposite way of the coach in front of him) and holds the helmet out at the FB's chest height. The FB now stiff arms the helmet with his INSIDE hand, palms up, right above the face mask.
The FB now runs to the second point, which is a tackling bag slightly to his outside and which simulates either an SS or a CB. He now drives into that bag with his outside shoulder with both hands on the ball. He must hit this bag so hard that he deliberately stumbles. He now puts one hand to the ground, PALM FLAT (not just knuckles and fingertips) catches himself, then comes back up by kicking his knees high and throwing his chest out, and keeps on running. If you have a FB that just can't do this latter part of the drill, have him hit and SPIN off the bag and keep going.

If you do it right, this is what the defense sees. First, the FB hits the LOS hard with his body low. This presents the DT's with only knees and shoulderpads to tackle. The LBer is frozen because the the FB comes straight at him. The FB cuts off the block on the LBer and is immediately ready to stiff-arm the free safety. He then drives into the outside defender coming in to create a huge collision from which he is prepared to regain his balance. In most cases, it takes all three defenders to bring my FB down - the LBer, the FS, and the outside man and, if that's happening, you're making yards.

This is the system I used for training my wing T FB's. I didn't use it for the DW but the last year I ran the wing T before trying the DW this last season, my FB averaged 10 yards per carry. We deliberately choose kids to play FB for their impact at the point of hit. One thing to keep in mind is that if you use these drills and then scrimmage your own defense, your own players will not tackle your FB. He'll go for a TD every play. This is because the defense learns it is not fun to tackle him - so they don't. They just let him go. Some will put on "acts" where they make it look like they tried but it's just an act. Therefore, handing off to your FB in practice against a live defense is a waste of time. We limit him to 1-2 carries in a scrimmage and let him block the rest. Otherwise, he'd score 60-70 points in 30 minutes and that gives the FB a false sense of invincibility. Just because our guys won't try and tackle him when it doesn't count doesn't mean the other team's guys won't try and tackle him when it does count. So we deliberately run the FB more times in his drills then in an actual scrimmage (Of course, if we're scrimmaging another team, we let him run them over). Anyway, as you can see, there's a lot involved in creating a true terror at FB but it can be done.