Composite Footballs vs Leather Footballs

I was out on the field recently teaching a private kicking lesson and the bag of balls given to the kicker was hardly worth opening.

As promised by the high school coach, the kicker WAS given practice balls to use.

However, these footballs had been beaten to a pulp.  They were so smooth and worn that they felt more like bowling balls than any kind of pig skin footballs I’ve ever seen.

So, I decided to mix in a few of composite footballs I had in my bag to see how they felt and traveled through the air when kicked.

For those of you who don’t know, a composite football is generally the cheapo ball you can find in the sporting isle at any Target or Walmart.  They are not leather, and they are certainly not expensive.  They don’t get heavy and wet in the rain or early morning dew like good old leather footballs either.

Nope, these were simple NFL Replica balls I found at Target for around $10 so I bought a couple JUST to see how they felt to kick as a practice ball.

The bottom line is that footballs are not cheap, especially game quality leather footballs, and we need between 5-10 in our kicking bag to have efficient kicking sessions on the field.  A ‘regular’ Wilson game ball can run $60 or more, easily.

So, let’s spend $600 to get started with a bag of 10 right?  Nope, not me personally.  This is why kickers generally go to the coach and ask for a bag full of footballs for kicking practice!

Not that I would completely ignore the freebies, if they are in decent shape.  However, consider mixing in some newer balls too, even if they are Wal-Mart specials 🙂

They won’t be ‘exactly’ what you use in a game, but more importantly (and if constrained by a budget or horrible coach donated footballs) you will actually have new footballs that you can kick, and lots of them.  The football pictured above is a Wilson NCAA Supreme Football, which is between $11 and $25 depending on the size you buy.  That’s a little more tolerable than $60-$80, right?

By the way, when I asked the kicker about which footballs out of the group were the favorites (ie, easier to kick of the leather or composite selections), the reply was “I couldn’t really tell the difference.”