Sensational Special Teams (15 pages, PDF)

Most staffs open the season saying special teams matter, then never measure them. As Hank Schrader puts it on page one, nearly every coach can tell you where his team ranked in total offense and total defense, but almost none can say where it ranked in total special teams — even though one of every five plays in a game is a special teams play, and every one of those plays brings a change of possession, a change of field position, or an attempt to score. Sensational Special Teams is a digitised edition of the printed Gridiron Strategies Special Coaching Report on that third of the game: 15 pages that start with a way to rate and grade your units, then hand you the practice structures, kick-coverage and punt-return schemes, punt-block schemes and specialist drills to fix what the rating exposes. The full text layer is searchable, so you can jump straight to "dip-and-crank," "jammers" or "X-spot."

What's inside

• 6 Steps To Improve Your Special Teams — Hank Schrader, former offensive and defensive coordinator at Bellevue High School, Bellevue, Wash., lays out the report's spine: rate your special teams in 23 categories (kickoffs, punts, special teams security, scoring), set nine specific goals plus unit averages (25-yard kickoff returns, a 37-yard net punt average, opponents held under 20 yards on kickoff returns, four place kicks and four punts blocked a season), build a comprehensive kicking-game scouting report, select personnel, protect practice time, and grade every player on every play.
• A scouting checklist you can hand to a coach on Friday night — question-by-question lists for when you punt, for your punt-block and punt-return team, for kickoff coverage and kick return, and for the opponent's extra-point and field-goal attempts, including the timing thresholds the report uses to decide whether to rush the kick (2.2 seconds to punt, 1.3 seconds to get a place kick away, hang time under 4.0 seconds).
• Personnel, by position and by trait — what the report wants in a special teams coordinator, the four positions it ranks as most important (long snapper, punter, place kicker, holder) and the qualities it fills the rest of the units with, in order: toughness, intensity, quickness, speed, football sense.
• Punting From A Running Formation Catches Opponents Off-Guard — Bob Knight, assistant coach at Preston High School, Kingwood, W. Va., on the fourth-and-short punt out of an I-formation or split backs with a flanker who can kick, including which side to align a right- or left-footed punter on and how motion serves the run, the pass and the punt.
• 7 Drills To Work Your Punters — Mark Hoffman and Todd Van Keppel of Valparaiso High School, Valparaiso, Ind.: balance work, the forward pass with the foot, the drop drill, fielding bad and wet snaps, punt golf and the drive-back game, with daily rep counts.
• Building Hard Core Special Teams — associate editor Pat Tearney on the philosophy Iowa State head coach Dan McCarney shared at a regional clinic, including the locker-room picture board and the "Hard Core" practice jersey earned for contributing on two or more units in the same game.
• Make Time For Special Teams! and Stop 'Em Cold On Kickoff Returns — Steve Kracht, special teams coordinator at Brookfield Central High School, Brookfield, Wis., on a practice week built from a 10-minute Specialists Period, a 15-minute "Special Of The Day," live-team calls, after-practice specialist work and an end-of-week script; then a kickoff coverage scheme that cuts the field width by a third, with player-by-player responsibilities across three alignments — wedge busters, "Kamikazes," the "Skimmer" and the kicker as safety.
• Kicking Your Way To A Title plus Drilling Your Kicker — Hoffman and VanKeppel again on the place-kicking unit: who to put on the extra-point team, letting the kicker choose his own holder (but never the quarterback), and technique detail for snapper, linemen, blocking backs, holder and kicker down to stance, tee placement, plant foot, contact point and follow-through — followed by six kicking drills including the 7-yard drill, around the world, the rush drill and a 15-second no-time-out drill.
• Effective Punt Returns Offer Huge Rewards — Tom Taylor, assistant coach at Thomasville High School, Thomasville, Ga., diagrams the double-deny return with full assignments for jammers, wallers, trailers and the force man, its options, the six-man single-deny return and the six-man-left punt block, plus the "wiggler" attributes each rush spot needs, the "X-spot" the rushers lay out on, and automatic returns away from the block.
• Successful Special Teams Starts With A Solid Philosophy — Mike Mallory, assistant football coach at the University of Illinois, on the four pillars behind six units, how staff duties are delegated, what belongs in a written practice plan, and a plus/minus grading system scored on execution, alignment and assignment, effort and a three-point big-play bonus, posted weekly. Includes six punt-block fundamentals and four drills: the hoop drill, the get-off drill, the wall punt return and the trail-technique drill.
• Pressuring Punts Powers Positive Momentum Changes — Kenny Ratledge, assistant coach at Sevier County High School, Sevierville, Tenn., on why pressure pays even when the punt gets away (shanks, bad snaps, shortened steps, poor hang time, no fakes), with three schemes diagrammed against the spread punt — gap-8, corner-loaded and overload — each with all eleven assignments, plus the keys for generating pressure and the "Bingo" and "Peter" calls for a loose or partially blocked ball.

Who it is for

Written for head coaches and special teams coordinators who have to get a third of the game coached in a fraction of the practice week. The bulk of it comes from high school staffs — Bellevue, Preston, Valparaiso, Brookfield Central, Thomasville and Sevier County — so the practice schedules, unit sizes and grading systems assume a high school roster and a normal coaching staff, with college perspective added from Iowa State and the University of Illinois. It suits a coordinator taking over the units for the first time, a head coach who wants an honest audit of where his kicking game actually ranks, and any staff installing punt block, punt return or kickoff coverage from scratch. Youth and middle school coaches will find the drills and the personnel criteria usable as written; the scouting checklists assume you have film of an opponent.