kickoff return vs short/squib kick

Coach,

If the opposing team always kicks it short here is my suggestion.

First, I run a 4-1-2-Diamond (something like this)

__X______X_______X______X
____________X

X_________________________X

___________X
_____X__________X

___________X

If the kick is short or has the potential of being short, the front 4 are assigned a kick team player to block, the middle up back drops a little then runs up the middle to secure the kicker or safety. The two wings will converge towards the middle and either cross or establish inside leverage on their assigned man and prevent them from converging on the return. The diamond is responsible for (#1) the ball, if it is short to one of the front three they secure it and pitch it back to the deep returner. #2 the front three of the diamond then form a wall and lead the return up the middle picking up any stragglers.

It's 1 for 1. We played a terrible kicking team and they only kicked "deep" to us once (on accident) and we scored.

If you would like a diagram of this email me, joboo59@hotmail.com and I will see what I can do!

Good Luck

nw

Coach, work all your guys on fair catching!
We have a pop up that lands and rolls around at least 3x year that we recover w/ great field position.
as a matter of fact, when we took over this program in our very first game the second half KO we recovered this way and I point to that event as the spark that started to change things around here!