Coach Special Teams With O/D Mentality
As the high school football and college football landscape continues to change coaching football will change with it. Coaching special teams will require adjustments as well. Today we want to look at coaching kickoff coverage and offer tips to help your inexperienced kicking game players.
We want to look at how using similar terminology and technique that your offense and defense uses can help you teach special teams better. Before we get into that though, let’s look at why this is even more important than it has been previously.
The transfer portal has changed a lot of things but the amount of time a college coach has to develop a player has been greatly reduced. Coaches now must be better and more efficient teachers than they ever have been. High school football special teams coaches will still be coaching players who are playing their first snap. That snap will likely be on special teams. Just teaching technique will not be enough.
The Transfer Portal Will Create Big Challenges For Special Teams Coaches
One thing that has not changed is that special teams will be the hardest thing to teach. Every year there will be a new group of players who have little to no understanding of your offense and defense, much less your special teams phases.
More than ever, special teams coaches will need to tie their teaching into the team’s offensive and defensive teaching. Your verbiage and systems should be as similar as possible. If it is not, you will struggle to teach players who just landed on your team and who may not be there for more than a year.
6 Special Teams Clinics From An NFL Coach Come With FirstDown PlayBook
Today we want to take kickoff coverage and use it as an example. Here is how we like to break the coverage responsibilities down so they make sense to defensive players. Obviously, your defensive structure will be at least slightly different so you could adjust accordingly.
Deep Middle Kickoff Coverage Taught With Defensive Assignments & Technique In Mind
The 3 and 4 are your Ends and Tackles. They play similar responsibilities as your defensive line in a 6-2 defense. They will play as if they are 3 & 5 techniques.
The 2’s are your outside linebackers. They play similar responsibilities to what they have on defense as a 9 technique.
The 5’s are your fast flow LB’s. The will react freely to the ball.
The 1’s are your cover 3 Corners except they have no pass to defend. They will fold late to provide a second line of defense.
The Kicker is your middle Safety and is the last line of defense.
We teach this coverage with more detail in the short video below. As you watch it consider ways that you can take every special teams phase and tie your teaching into your offensive and defensive scheme and verbiage. You will also see how you can easily adjust this to other kickoff coverages.
This Short Video Describes How You Can Adjust Your Special Teams Teaching
