How much time for Special Teams?

Edward Johnson

As a Head Coach, I would definitely ideally want to hire a Special Teams coordinator but this being my first year, I will take responsibility for our kicking game.

I will divide the certain special teams up with my coaches and they will have the responsibility of that specific team. Each coach will be responsible for placing the personnel, calling them out during practice, making sure each player is on the field, each position has its backups, and pulling them together on the sideline before we run that specific special team during practice.

As a staff, we will discuss the personnel for all the different special teams. Our numbers are very low and we are very young on the roster. Many of our starters will have to play special teams but I like to look for kids who may not be starters, kids who are backups and bust their butts in practice. I like to make sure as many different kids as possible touch the field and play. On kick off and punt team, I like to have my more speedy aggressive kids like linebackers, running backs, and defensive backs who will fly down the field full speed.

Offensive Coordinator: He will be responsible for our Punt team and our PAT/ Field goal team. Both teams ride off the offense so organizing personnel for these two teams will be relatively simple for him.

Defensive Coordinator: He will be responsible for Punt Return and PAT Block. Both these teams also ride off of defense so organizing the personnel will be easy, not to mention many of our defensive guys will be on these teams.

Linebackers Coach: He will be responsible for our Kick Off Return team.

Wide Receiver: He will help coach all of our returners on KOR and PR

Running Back Coach: He will take control of our Kick Off team.

When we practice special teams we will usually have three, five-minute blocks so fifteen minutes. Every day, we will have this fifteen minute special teams period. Each day we will work with three different special teams. I expect my coaches to implement each team in a walk through fashion. We will walk through each team at a half speed pace to ensure all the kids understand where they should be and their assignment. This is very important on teams such as KOR and Punt Return. After we have gone through at a slow pace, we will do a few reps at full speed to see how it all looks.