sideline kick return

I have always run some kind of middle return. In our league most kickers are inconsistant and you don't always know where the ball will end up. I want to keep things as simple as possible. MIddle wedges and crosses have worked okay for us. The problem as I see it with "in play" calls would be screwing it up. The kids don't react fast enough etc. Now that being said I have hd teams have success against us running sideline returns so I know they work. I would be interested to know what other coaches do as far as making them work and what they do when the ball is kicked away from where the wall is being set up.

Coach, thanks for the reply. Can you describe your formation, "assignments" and who is in the wedge. I read that you use several types of sideline returns so maybe just write up one or two. Thanks for your help!

After years of trying to convince our kids that "we'd break one of these wedge returns someday, just keep ramming it in there", we decided that either we weren't teaching it well, or we didnt have the kids sold on how hard they had to run it in there ---- we put in a finess return - a nice little sideline return with a double team kickout on the gunner - everyone else has an assignment and walls off (T has 3, G has 4, C has 5, BSG 6, BST8, middle row has the kickout, contain and #7 - 9, 10, 11 are unblocked if the kick is down the middle or to the return side - if it's away from the return, a deep back will pick up first threat. When they kicked it where we wanted we averaged a tremendous 42 yards per return - including 3 returns for TD's - that was over 4 games - then it became apparent to everybody - kick it away from "that kid". So we had to put in the same return to the other side and GUESS that they'd kick it away from our best - the other kid had okay success - certainly equal to our wedge returns from previous seasons.

We never like making the direction call during the play - for reasons already stated, it just doesn't work. So for the remainder of that season we just called it one way before the kick- the returner either had to get to the kickout or he had to make a play all by himself.

We're still trying to figure out how to make everybody's kicker good enough so we know where the ball will be going (our opponents aren't receptive to our offers to send them to kicking camp!) - but the fact of the matter is so many HS kickers WE see are really bad - and the ball is just flopping around on the ground --- DOES ANYONE HAVE A GREAT RETURN IDEA FOR THE KICK THAT GOES TO THE 20 YD. LINE AND IS ROLLING ON THE GROUND??? Outside of the wedge return, does anybody have a middle return that they like, with crossers or whatever? Something creative? I'd hate to go back to the wedge return but it does cut down on the damage to our return guys (and they're at a premium around here!)

We have TWO really really good kick returners next year - anybody have any thoughts on how to best utilize TWO of them without running a wedge return???

Coach:

So many teams are kicking from a hash today and trying to pin you into 1/3 of the field. Based upon scouting tendencies, we will run a sideline wedge. Our alignment is 4 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 1, covering the entire field because as one of the coaches pointed out, you have know idea where the kick is going. We use a man scheme with our first two layers, crossfield blocks with our third level, and two double team kicks outs by the remaining players.

Our front line players execute their blocks around the 35 - 30 yard line - blocking inside
Level 3 players execute crossfield blocks around the 30 yardline
Double teams are usually executed around the 25 0 20 yardline

The sideline return is meant to hit between the hash and the numbers.

Coach Lyle

Coach Lyle:

Can you draw that up on paper via email for me, as I can't comprehend it in mind? Thanks!

Darin, could you please email your ideas to me as well. I am interested in using more sideline returns this year. Thanks so much.