Staff Organization

Max Meagher

The name for you US history buffs is a tribute to the heroes of our revolutionary war. Our special teams is probably different than most on this board. Please this understand that this fits with our current situation and culture and it would be extremely difficult to start over and put this in at a place that operates differently and has experienced success. When I took over 6 full seasons ago our program was averaging a 2-6 record for the previous 21 years. In 6 seasons we have won a section title, had two more undefeated regular seasons losing in the section championship, and an additional section runner-up. I do not say this to toot my own horn, but to set the stage so you understand that I had nothing to lose, and the expectations were so low. People in our community do not always agree with what I do special teams wise, and even some administration in the school. With that being said, I have the "right" to do what I want because we have been winning like never before in the school and have been doing it often times with far less athletic skill than the opponents we face.

GERONIMO (Kickoff) - Geronimo was the code word used when the US got Osama Bin Laden. Our number 1 goal when we kick off is that our offense goes out on the field. We have not given up a return for longer than 3 yards in the last 4 years. On average we recover a kick 1 out of 3.5 kicks. We have about 8 different types of kicks and all onside kicks are not short kicks, so we can pin opponents deep. The personnel we use is our most aggressive best fumble recover guys. We want the guy that everyone would prefer is on his side in a street fight. Speed is a priority on any unit on the field.

Kick Return - Our number one priority is that our offense takes the next snap. Either going for 2 point conversion after a return for a TD or running our offense. Our best play makers offensively will be on this team with regards to having the best hands team possible up front because we don't want to lose a surprise onside kick. Our front line is always first aware of kick placement. We have had some success with returns having at least 2 touchdowns each of the past 4 years. We only bring 2 returns into a game plus a late game lateral situation. Thought is that if we need more than 2 types of returns we should have spent more time on defense.

SNIPER (Punt) - Most important attribute for our punter is that he can run fast, make one guy miss hopefully, and that he can throw better than a junior high kid. WE DON'T PUNT. We punted 6 times in 11 games and 4 of those 6 were because we were up so much I felt that it would have been unsportsmanlike to go for it. A lot of statistics behind this, and it is easily the most controversial thing we do. Way more than our onside kicking. Our formations and fakes out of our punts will change from week to week.

Punt Return - We will attempt to fair catch all punts or let them go into the end zone. These are our best athletes and have permission to run if there is space to limit the fair catch. Sometimes we will not put a returner back and play safe defense. This allows us to disguise heavily rush punts for blocks and still remain sound against a possible fake. If they are lining up to punt, we want our offense on the field the next play.

PAT - Our kids don't even know what that is. We go for two every time. Rationale, we have never had a combination of a kicker, holder, snapper, and line that could consistently get the job done. We convert at almost 70% so we score more than if we made every kick. Positives are that it makes our goal line offense really good. We are able to go for 2 every time immediately after we score in practice. (Our offense team goes full field and scores through the whistle every play if they can) We get tons of extra reps for our offense doing this. Also, after getting a score the opponents defense is emotionally down and we line up immediately and go for two. We take advantage of their negative emotions. The downside is that we obviously don't have a FG unit. I will admit if we had enough coaches and personnel to make this happen I wouldn't be opposed to having a FG unit. We do some off season work each year to determine if we will have this unit. If not then hail mary, hook and ladder, hook and ladder x 2 reverse here we come.

PAT Block - We do have but only get reps in the game because we don't have a unit to line up against. We walk through this during the week and it is our defensive unit on the field.

We have one coach who specifically scouts and builds our kick off, kick return and punt team plans each week. We will use film to best build this plan but we will never see the opponents "base" special teams with the exception of PAT and their punt. Therefore we have designed calls to attack areas of the field based on alignments. Our kids consider the greatest honor to be on GERONIMO.

Monday: 10 minutes of special teams walk throughs

Tuesday: our geronimo team will have one specific drill built into our turnover stations. We will also build in one specific drill to our pursuit as well. Kickers kick after practice and we will have 25 guys out there kicking and trying to come up with new tricks to convince the coaches to let them use it in a game. Kickers are heroes on our sideline especially when we recover a ball. I don't believe much in staying after for an important drill because it communicates to players it isn't important. However, we have to kick guys off the field during this so it has worked out.

Our punt team will go over the formation, work our blocking protection for 5 minutes. This gives 5 minutes of snaps and punts to the long snapper and punter. We don't get a live rush because opponents don't actually believe we will kick it even if we line up in a punt formation. We will put in our run fake and pass fake for the week on Thursday and run through them each twice

Kick Return: We recover balls in ball fight drills for onside kick recovery. We work on angle blocking at a 75% speed and do one live kick return each day when we start our 11 on 11 offensive session. They get about 10 minutes total for the week not counting walk throughs

Punt Return: We only work on blocks and recovering fakes. Our return is telling our guys not to block somebody in the back and go find work. We don't do this live at all, but our punt returners practice catching punts 5 minutes everyday.

PAT Block is a Thursday walkthrough

Thursday we walk through all special teams scenarios

I am smiling as I am about ready to hit submit because "there goes my A in this class"