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My high school alma mater has had a great deal of success in football for a very long time.  I think one of the reasons for this is satisfactory coaching.  Dave Keel has been the head coach for 29 years and is always had the philosophy of replicating game situations in practice.  When we would do tackling drills, there are always several aspects to each repetition.  For instance, we would run down the field, contact a player, push them back 3 yards, perform a rip move off them and simulate the tackling of a ball carrier.  This practice variability was useful as it presented a variety of movements and content when practicing the skill.  The random practice pattern help with the transfer of skills as well as the retention.  If we would have practice a rip move 20 times in a row, then performed a tackle 20 times in a row we would have used blocked practice.  The mistakes made during practice would have likely decreased, but the performance during games would have suffered.  Below is a picture of me perform a section of this random practice drill before game time.

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A very important aspect of being a good player in football is being able to deceive your opponent.  I was considered an undersized linebacker weighing only 180 lbs so I really tried to take advantage of my speed and quickness when facing o big 250+ lb lineman.  One strategy that I often utilized would be to fake like I was going inside, then plant my foot and dart outside.  A lot of times the lineman would miss their block because I would get the momentum going in one way and then cut back another.  This can be explained due to psychological refractory period. When one stimulus, in this case the fake move inside, it's presented in a rapid succession with the second stimulus, the opponent is unable to respond quickly enough to the second move.  This is concept can be explained do the single channel hypothesis which states if S1 enters the channel, then the processing of S2 cannot take place until the first stimulus has completely cleared the channel.  This interference allowed me to have success against bigger opponents. The video below shows a prime example of using a juke move and the psychological refractory period.

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I considered myself to be a decent high school football player.  I was never the best player on the field, but I could hold my own against other guys on the gridiron.  There were several players from my team that got offers to play football at the collegiate level.  I found myself a little jealous that they were able to continue their football career.  We practiced and lifted weights the same duration of time so how were they so much better than the majority of the team?  I now know, at the end of the day, the innate abilities of individuals separate them from others.  Skills such as pass-rushing technique and analyzing plays are able to be improved with practice, while abilities are unmodifiable.  Either you have it or you don't.
Football is such a dynamic sport that requires a wide range of movements meaning there are numerous abilities that affects one's overall performance.  I talked about the importance of reading the blocks of the offensive lineman in the previous section and how I was able to improve my performance with practice.  However, somebody with a better ability of response orientation will be able to make quick choices among the numerous alternative actions, ultimately leading them to make more good plays.  When an individual possesses several significant abilities, they will naturally be a better player.  My innate abilities were not on par with those going to play football in college.  It was at this point I knew it was time to call it a career and hang up the cleats.

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I have always been more dominant with my right hand than left in almost every skill and task I perform.  There was no difference in football, I was more skilled rushing the passer when I could use my right arm to perform rip and swim moves on the linemen.  Due to the dominance in my right limb, I would typically lineup on the left side of the defensive field so when I was going against the tackle my right hand was contacting them first.  The picture below illustrates this concept by showing All-Pro linebacker, Khalil Mack utilizing a right-handed ripped move.  I would typically lineup this way, so naturally I practiced right-handed pass-rushing more frequently than with my left.  Once I got the key concepts and basic movements established using my dominant arm, I attempted to perform the same moves with my left arm.  This was surprisingly much easier than I expected.  I now know this task was not overly challenging because the positive transfer of learning which explains the beneficial effect performing a task can have on the learning of another similar skill.  More specifically, bilateral transfer occurred as the practice with my right arm yielded improved performance in my left.  The transfer occurs due to important cognitive information learned during practice with my right arm, as well as my generalized motor program being strengthened in both of my limbs.  Proficiently learning pass rush moves from both the right and the left side was critically important to my game as it allowed me to line up in various positions based on the offensive formation.

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protective equipment in gridiron football

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One of the most important aspects playing linebacker is understanding how to “read the guards".  This concept involves analyzing the offensive lineman's initial movement which then determines what direction the play it's going to go.  Reading the keys presented by the offense of lineman will ultimately take the linebacker to the football.  There are several different blocking options I had to look for such as a base block, reach, pull, and pass block.  Each one of these actions required a different initial movement from me as a defender.  When I first took reps as a starter my senior year, I was constantly talking myself through the reads during practice.  For example, if the guard was pass blocking, I would tell myself “Pass protection step: open hips, sprint flat coverage”.   Giving myself verbal cues helped me process the information because I was just learning the concept.  After seeing the different reads every day throughout the dreadful summer  “2-a-days”, I made massive improvements and recognizing the blocks presented.  By the time the first game rolled around in late August, I had practiced the difference key reads so many times I didn't have to consciously think about my movement.  Furthermore, if I made a mistake, I was able to easily correct it during the play to hopefully not give up a huge gain.  From the first day of practice to the first game, I went through Fitt's and Posner's 3-stage model of learning.  When I first started, I had to use verbal cues and was figuring out the best strategy to read the blocks correctly.  I  was initially looking at the lineman's head which can be deceptive when attempting to figure out their movement.  I figured out that looking at their abdominal area was a much better focal point due to the fact that the deception was much less.  I improved leaps and bounds during the first week because I was able to effectively determine a strategy to maximize my performance on the field.  During the associative phase, I no longer had to talk myself through the play and would notice slight improvements over the course of time.  Finally, after about a month of practice every day, I reach the autonomous stage of learning.  My reaction to the lineman's initial movement was essentially automatic.
Below is a picture of linebacker that is effectively reading the guards block.