Kicking Game Organization

Jeffrey Tebelak

Each football coach on every level has an assignment with our special teams practice segments. I as the head coach take full responsibility of the special teams, because as long as I am running it everyone knows how important it is to the team. My defensive coordinator focuses on the punt return, kickoff, and PAT block team and all us coaches coach for him. I coach the defensive line on the punt return team and PAT block team, and the wedge player on the kickoff team along with one frosh/soph coach. Our defensive back coach and two frosh/soph coach coaches corners on the punt return team, the bullets on the kickoff team, and the edge defenders and safety on the PAT block team. Our linebackers coach and one frosh/soph coach coaches the linebackers on the punt return team, the alley players on the kickoff team, and the linebackers on the PAT block team. Our defensive end coach and one frosh/soph coach coaches the contain players on the kickoff team and PAT block team, and focus on the scout team. Our Wide receivers coach coaches the kicker on the kickoff team (he is a retired pro soccer player).

For the punt team, kick return team, and the PAT team I coach the personal protectors on the punt team, the front line on the kick return team, and the holder on the PAT team. My running backs coach and two frosh/soph coaches coach the gunners on the punt team, the middle section of the kick return team, and wing backs on the PAT. My wide receiver coach (a retired profession soccer player) and one frosh/soph coach (jv head soccer coach for our school) coach the punters, PAT kicker, and the returners on the kick return team. Our varsity offensive line coach coaches the front line of our punt team and PAT team and runs the scout team along with one frosh/soph coach.

We put our best athletes on our special teams and use other players to give them blows who show they have what it takes to get after it. Our subs first job when they prove themselves capable is to give a two way starter a blow on special teams if he shows he can handle it and wants it (the majority of our players go both ways; we usually only get 20-25 kids out for varsity football. We work in a community of soccer players and fans and the parents and students do not like the violence in football; they are too afraid of getting hurt. The soccer team will get anywhere from 100-200 players trying out for the team). We are trying to get more players, but it is hard to recruit at the school, but we are hoping for a good number of kids this year...at least we have kids thinking about it this season :0)

This is my second year of my second stint as the head coach at the school; many players were turned-off from football by the last assistant coaching staff before I came back again. We are doing our best to change the image of the football program. We are also all coaching both levels this year, because we need to retain our lower-level kids so they stay with the program. The more everyone knows me and my varsity assistant coaches the better it is for the program, had some problems with my lower-level coaches and I had to make major changes (I brought in coaches who are upright human beings of the community and who want to learn how to become better football coaches; the coaches also have visions of having their own team one day and are back in college finishing their degrees and teaching credentials, always a good thing to have).

Mondays we spend 10 minutes on KR drills, KR blocking, and PR drills and PR blocking. We then spend 10 minutes on Team KR and PR. Twenty minutes total. Our kickers and punters work every day on their kicking placement and directional kicking.

Tuesdays we spend 10 minutes on KO drills, KO lanes (bullet, alley, and contain players), and Punt drills and punt block. We then spend 10 minutes on KO and Punt team. Twenty minutes total. Our kickers and punters work every day on their kicking placement and directional kicking.

Wednesdays we spend 10 minutes on our punt and PAT fakes. Our kickers and punters work every day on their kicking placement and directional kicking.

Thursdays we spend over 30 minutes special teams throughout our practice as we give our kids a situational setting of playing the game.

Special teams is very important to our coaching staff and players, because it is a way to get quick points or good field position or give up quick points and lose good field position.

Chevas Clements

Special Teams are one of the most if not the most important factor that separates good teams from championship teams. Games are won and lost because of special teams. There is nothing more heart breaking than to play great offense and/or defense but lose because of poor special teams performances. Our players and coaches must take pride when chosen to be part of these important units because they should recognize the confidence we have in their abilities to help our team be successful.

We believe that the first play of the game, whether it be kicking off or returning the kick, we must set the tone for the rest of the night. We want to let our opponents know that they are in for a physical battle through our desire, toughness, and execution.

To Achieve success in the special teams phase of the game, we must be committed to the following:

We must be sound in every aspect of the special teams:

Our special teams cannot break down and beat themselves. Players will be given detailed scouting reports and instructions. Many times starters are involved in special teams and not only must master offense and/or defense game plans, but they must be sound in knowing what we are trying to accomplish with special teams.

Field Position is a Must:

Because of the great amount of field position yardage that is produced and lost on special teams, we will consistently preach the importance of field positioning to help make victory possible.

Our attitude toward special teams will reflect our commitment to excellence:

We will play the best available athlete to help us win this phase. all players must be devoted to help the team. On special teams, we have unique opportunities to make special, game changing plays. Our players (and coaches) must never want to look back on the game and say, "I wish I would have..." Our attitude must focus around the W.I.N philosophy: have a attitude that focuses on what's Important Now.

Practice Schedule:

Monday = Punt and Kick Off

Tuesday = Field Goal And Field Goal Block

Wednesday = Kick Off Return and Punt Return

Thursday = We cover all the special teams.

My Coaches are assigned to the special teams that they enjoy coaching the most. Typically our defensive staff will have the defensive special teams and the offensive staff will have the responsibility of the offensive special teams. I will be hands on with kick off and punt because we can give up points if we don't cover properly.

Mark Kessler


In looking at our Special Teams Install, I have to agree with Coach Campbell - "we are responsible for the How To, while our players are responsible for the Want to...". The first thing I expect from our staff is to understand our Philosophy of special teams: we want to be "Special". That means for the one play our kids will execute each and every time. The second thing we want to do is involve players in the game. We have a roster of 65 to 75 kids. While all of our kids are not "Football Players", we have a number of kids that are quality players with skills and talents that we must develop and incorporate into our team if we are going to be succe3ssful come Playoff time. Our staff will work with player s to develop the necessary techniques to be successful on a given special team and create a great climate of success by sharing the roles and getting kids involved. We will not sacrifice our quality special teams by putting players on the field that cannot be successful, but we will work to get every "starter" off the field by using our back up players and kids that have great talents for our special teams.

The following is our staff break up for Special Teams:

Punt Team:

Line (G/T) - We teach a specific "Kick" step in our protection game. This is handled by the Line Coach, we are looking for Defensive End/Offensive Guard/Linebacker types that are physical and can run.
Wings - RB Coach - we want TE or FB types that are physical and athletic.
Gunners - WR Coach, we want fast and great tacklers at this spot.
Long Snapper/Punter - Head Coach (Past Punter) so I take these two spots. Allows for focus on timing, snap, steps and drop. Want to use the talents we have...if we have a banger, then we will kick away and make plays. If we have a kicker that can't kick for distance, we would add directional kicks and create field position that way. In looking at our LS, we have been blessed, we have great QB's (past 8 - Division I) and great Long Snappers (past 9 have gone to snap in College).
Personal Protector - QB Coach, we want our Protector to make all line calls, adjustments, and fakes. We give him a Key list that will Alert him to what he needs to do every time he aligns. We use a spread Punt so we can do a better job of counting the box and maximizing our protection game.
Punt Return:

Our Alignment is called "Raiders" we want to raid the punter and cause mental and physical "unrest" for the opponent. We have 4 calls for our punt team: Return Right(Pin to the Right Sideline), Left(Pin to the Left Sideline), Safe(Block), and GATA (Get After Their Ass). We want our players to be fast, disruptive and annoying to the opponent. We make a call and align every player on the LOS. We will match the box, if they align everyone in the box then we will have 10 players on the LOS, if they spread punt, then we will have 8 on the LOS.
Our front 8 is coached by our DL coach. We want an aggressive sprinter stance and we teach to attack, wether on a block call or return call, we want our players to attack until the whistle.
Returner - must be an athlete (we have a saying, we want our returner to be "difficult to catch in a phone booth"). This player needs to be fast like lightening, and fearless like thunder. We have our RB Coach intruct all returners.
Corners - DB Coach, we teach a press technique, shuffle, and off safe technique. We want to be physical and push disrupt the path of the opponent.
PAT/FG: we keep this as simple as possible, but we do use a swinging gate on PAT. We want the opponent to have to spend extra practice time going over it and we also want our kids to have some FUN. We allow our holder to make the call for fakes or shift and kick.

Line - OL Coach, we teach a step down, we want our BEEF in the middle.
TE/WB - TE Coach, we want these players to be physical and athletic. We run a number of fakes and want to get the ball to these kids.
Holder - Head Coach, this is our athlete. He is the kid that could play QB, WR, RB, DB, or what ever you needed. We allow for him to control all of the PAT calls and practice the heck out of the snap, hold, and kick phase.
Kicker - Head Coach, I am the coach by default. Nobody else knows how to kick soccer style or the coaching cues necessary to help him out when he is struggling. I also can appreciate the mental approach the kicker takes to the game.
Kick OFF: we will use the kickoff for three things, possession, field position, and "the weakest link". We will look for areas that the recieving team is not protecting from onside kick opportunities. We have had some greqat fortune with some kickers that can punch this thing deep into the endzone negating anypossible return. Finally, we can attack their weakest link by position kicking.

Bombers: fast, physical, and hitters. Coached by our LB Coach, they will look to run to the ball on contact.
Contain: sure tacklers with good speed. Coached by our DB Coach, they will corral the ball and keep it from getting outside. They are "last chance" players if it pops.
Clean Up: These three players are following the rule of keeping the ball to their inside shoulder and work to avoid first contact and fill on second. They are coached by our Safties coach.
Safties: We like to use players that have a knack of avoiding contact or clutter on the football field, andare able to to find the football. We want to have the layers coached by the Corners coach.
Kicker - Head Coach, we teach a "Pop-up" onside kick. If the team doesn't react to our overload (5 players aligned inside the has to sideline) we will onside. If they overload to our short field, leaving the field exposed by a 5 to 2 mismatch, then we "Roll it" to the field. If they play for an onside kick, we go after the weakest link. If we want to have field position, we will "bang" the ball into the endzone, or deep!
Kick Return: we want to flip field position. We will use a wedge, cross, and directional return.

T/G/C/G/T (Front line) DB Coach, we want athletic hitters. We will teach to "hunt" by taking good angles, breaking down, we want disruption, not big hits or big misses.
Wedge - TE Coach, we are looking for Atheltic, bulky guys, we don't do a true "Wedge" return, we want to seek out markers and will look to double team the MDM or #3 from the Right or left side.
Returners - RB Coach, same thing as punt return, we want players that are difficult to corral, catch, hit, or touch. We will teach returners to attack landmarks then find space. We want vertical yards not "Horizontal Headaches". GET UP FIELD!!!
In looking at the time spent on a weekly basis, we want to focus on at least 2 a day finishing with a comprehensive dress rehearsal on Thursday. I would break down our time as follows:

Monday's - Punt/KOR, we would look at using 15 min per team, broken up into drills for skills, then team vs. opponent. For a total of 30 min of work.

Tuesday's - Raiders (PR) / Kick Off (same as above)

Wednesday's - PAT/FG, we look for using our FG team on our 2 min Offense drill, using only the snap, hold and kick. PAT is a specific period, and our Field Goal unit ends practice with 8 kicks (4 for 1's and 4 for 2's).

Thursday - Dress Rehaersal, we use this period for a 45 min work out on all special teams. We use situations to put our teams in specific worst case scenarios.

The last piece of time is our "Specials period" on Monday's and Wednesday's. We use a 10 min period for all specialists to work on the craft.

Sione Taufoou


We treat special teams just like we do offence and defense. Our team we receive a special team scouting report via hudl presentation. They will be given plays to watch to learn fits. ST receives is own lunch film and chalk talk. Just as Off and DEF, ST has a test Thursday prior to games. Saturday after games we give candy bars to the ST player of the week.



All of our starters will be on ST. Players that make plays on ST who do not start typically find there way into the rotation very quickly.



Each coach is given one ST. With-in that ST they must assign each coach a position. Coaches are expected and coach it as they do everything else. ST will get a 20 min segment daily for drills. And a 10 min segment to run pods or team drills pending where we are. We then use one day a week where you will run ST mixed in with our Off and Def team periods.



The biggest impact we have with ST comes over the summer and spring ball. Including spring ball you are looking at 8 weeks of practice, 4 days a week, 2 hours a day- give or take. ST gets 30 mins each day plus 1-2 of the install periods a week prior to practice starting. We can build depth and stress the importance of ST to the program.

David Diener


In the kicking game we usually distribute the tasks among the 5 varsity only staff members. The way we set up our practice schedules varsity players run varsity scout or are on varsity special teams. The other 8 coaches on staff have their sub varsity teams running their play review and team periods. With an 8 man staff I would divide the the duties this way.





Head Coach and Special Teams Coordinator: Scheme and breakdown of practice time for each special team, Front Line on KOR, Personal Protector on Punt.

Offensive Coordinator: Snappers - Short Snap and Long Snap,

Defensive Coordinator: Front Line on PAT, Front Line on Punt

Wide Receivers: Returners - Punt and KOR

Defensive Backs: Gunners on Punt and Force Players on Kickoff

Running Backs: Upbacks on KOR, Contain Players on Kickoff,

Linebackers: Wings on PAT, Slots on Punt, Linebackers on Punt Return.

Quarterbacks: focus on the kickers - Place kickers, holders, and Punters, Organization for subs during football games.



Expectations:

Practice - Specialist start practice 10 minutes before actual practice begins. All snappers, kickers, and returners will work on their specialty before practice starts. On Tuesday and Wednesday during the week 20 minutes of practice time will be spent on special teams. The head coach and special teams coordinator will decide where we need to spend the most time based off of last weeks game film and the upcoming opponent. On Thursday will be a walk through of every special team and then practiced during the mock game situations. Each special team will have minimum 10 minutes of practice time between the two days Tuesday and Wednesday, with a 5 minute period spent on Thursday.

Individual Coaches - Each coach is responsible for grading out their position groups from the previous game. The special teams coordinator is responsible for breaking down tendencies, but each position coach is responsible to look at what the personnel of the upcoming opponent.

Special Teams Install - We have two weeks of preseason before our first official game week. This is the time where the main install of the schemes we use are put in. Each day will be a different emphasis with meetings after school and before practice on how the scheme should work. Once the season starts then, we just adjust our scheme to what we will be seeing the next week.



Player Personnel:

Kickoff: Contain: Should be your 4 best tacklers, mainly made up of linebackers and maybe running backs

Force: Should be your 5 fastest defensive players, that are willing to avoid front line and make an impact on the play.

Safeties: Best two open field tacklers. FS and SS type bodies

Kickoff Return: Front Line: Fastest O Lineman and/or DE’s. They need to be able to run to a spot and make a block in space.

Upbacks: Linebacker and runningback bodies, able to handle the ball for pooch kicks, and lead block.

Returners: Two best athletes with the chance for big play potentional, usually WR or DB’s

Punt: Front Line: DE and quick Olineman that can protect for 3 seconds and still cover the punt

Upbacks: 2 Biggest bodies that can move.

Personal Protector: fullback or number 2 running back that can run fake, and also move to pick up any leak through.

Gunners: 2 best corners or safeties that can move and tackle in space.

Punt Return: Front Line: DE’s and Linebackers that can rush the punt and set up a wall

Linebackers: Linebackers and fullback/runningback bodies that can pick up first threat and protect the returner to get to the wall.

Gunner Waller: 2 best cover defensive backs, to stick with the gunners.

Returners: 2 best athletes that have the chance to score, usually DB’s or WR’s

PAT Fieldgoal: Front Line: Four biggest O and D Lineman, with 2 TE’s. Cannot get blown off the ball.

Wings: Linebackers or Runningbacks that can cover inside gap.

Holder: Someone a coach can trust to handle the snap, usually a backup QB or WR.

Christopher Pace

We believe a successful program has the ability to stress and sell the importance of team and roles within the program. That no matter if you are the one catching the game winning TD or the player who gave us a great look on the scout team all week., your role and contribution to the growth and success of the program is all required and needed. That it takes every member of this family to make us who we are.



We carry this same philosophy into our special teams. Special teams can win or lose a game for us. Our special teams philosophy is:



"Special teams are a system just as important as our offense or defense, and will be just as crucial to our success. Each day practice time will be allotted to the special teams. We will control field position and force our opponents into long drives. Our special team players will be starters in our program. They will be the tone setters in practice and in games. It is a honor to be a special teams player in our program."





Our special teams is broken up by the HC and each varsity coach is assigned one aspect of special teams they will introduce and install to the coaching staff and the team. They are responsible for all areas of the special team and all the different scenarios that may come with it. They are also in charge of creating a depth chart each week (with HC, OC, DC approval as we have low numbers and at times need to figure out creative ways to get 2 way players a couple minute rest).





Each day special teams is designinated a certain amount of time at practice to install, teach and review their system. Defensive days we work punt return, block, safe and KO return, hands, free kick return. On offensive days we work punt, fakes, pinned deep and KO, onside, squib, free kick, and FG/PAT. On team day we set aside our circuit period to work different individual apsects of of special teams such as:



Long snappers



Gunners



OL play



Edge rushers



Silencers



Kicker/Punters



Returners.





As far as personnel for special teams, we sell that it is an honor and privilge to be on special teams. These plays can potentially be the most influencial plays of a game and we need uys that will sacrifice themselves to winning each special teams play. So we do our best to find the best set of players that fit each special team philosophy and goals, whether they are starters or non starters.





When we treat special teams as just as important as offense and defense, so will our players. It is called "Special" teams for a reason.