How to Play Football- The Fundamentals
It is no wonder that many young athletes enjoy competing in youth football games since it is one of the most popular sports. Wanting to play youth football is one thing, while knowing how to play football is what matters. Youth football can seem overly complex unless it is introduced with a good overview. Once it is properly explained the confusion will fade to understanding. This article will explain the basics of how to play football.
A youth football game takes place on a football field that is 100 yards long. On this playing field there are yard markers which detail where the ball is placed to be placed after each down. (We’ll get to downs a little later on in our explanation of how to play football.) On both sides of the field are end zones. While on offense, the goal of a team is to bring the ball into the end zone in order to score. While on defense, the main goal is to prevent the other team from scoring.
Of course, there is no opened ended time commitment to this and anyone wishing to learn how to play football needs to understand the issue of time periods. Specifically, youth football is broken into four quarters of 15 minutes each. There is a 12 minute halftime in between the two quarters. During the actual quarters, a team has 40 seconds to snap a football or face a penalty. But, what happens if the game is tied by the end of the 4th quarter? A 15 minute sudden death overtime will be enacted. If the 15 minutes elapses and no one scores, the game is ruled a tie. So, it is safe to say, understanding the concept of the clock is critical to understanding how to play football.
When trying to learn how to play football, it is critical to clearly understand what happens during a game. Each football team has two different facets: an offense and defense. When one team is playing offense, the opponents will be on defense. The team that possesses the ball is the offensive team and their quarterback will try to pass the ball or hand it off to another player. The player that has the ball will try to run to the end zone in order to score points. When the defensive team tackles the runner, this is considered a down. A down is also called if a player runs out of bounds. The defensive team will gain possession of the football at the place where the 4th down occurs. Usually the offensive team will kick the ball after the third down in order to move the ball as far from the opponents’ goal as possible.
Note: if the defensive team catches a pass or if the offensive runner drops the ball and defense picks it up, defense immediately gains possession of the ball. Defense can immediately run the ball in order to score. Again, such rules show that learning how to play youth football often relies on an understanding of the incidentals of the game.
A clear understanding of how to play football will revolve around understanding how points are scored. Specifically, there are several ways to score points and they include:
A Touchdown: When a team catches or runs the ball in the opposing team’s end zone, they will acquire 6 points.
Extra Point/Two point conversion: After a touchdown is successfully scored, the team can either kick a 1 point field goal or try to run/pass the ball from the 10th yard line to score an extra 2 points.
Extra Point/Two point conversion: After a touchdown is scored, the scoring team can choose to kick a field goal that is worth one point or attempt to run/pass the ball from the 10th yard line in order to score 2 points.
Safety: This is a scoring strategy many people learning how to play football are unaware of since it happens almost incidentally. Basically, if the team on offense is tackled in its own end zone, the defensive team will receive 2 points.