We try to keep our opponents off-balance in the special
teams game and one way we do that is with a variation on the kickoff
that we feel gives us an advantage and forces our opponents to stay
basic in the kickoff return game.
The principle of it is simplicity itself.
Conventionally kickoff coverage teams line up in a line across the
field. Some of them vary it slightly by having "crashers" or
"assassins" who race to the ball while everybody else stays in their
lanes but essentially it is all the same concept. On the kickoff
return side many teams work their blocking schemes by having their
players count coverage players from one sideline (or both) and
anticipate their blocking accordingly.
Our coverage scheme takes that plan away from them
because our players do not line up in any predictable way before the
kickoff. In fact we instruct our players NOT to line up in any
particular way. We have them gather around the kicker in something
of a "milling about" look. They approach the football along with
the kicker and then spread out into their lanes as they get downfield.
This makes it very difficult for the kick return team to anticipate
where each player will go and whom they should block. It's easy
for us, the players only need to know their lanes and their alignment is
irrelevant.
It also gives us one unexpected advantage -- it gives us
the ability to go with an onsides kick at anytime without changing
formation. All 10 players are gathered around the kicker already
and if the situation presents we can take advantage by having the kicker
kick onsides and all 10 of his teammates can swarm the ball very quickly
for our best chance of recovery.
Coaching Point it is easy for the players in this
kind of kickoff to get lazy and just become 10 strikers rushing down the
field after the football. It's important that your players respect
their coverage lanes and that your containment people maintain their
outside leverage. We drill on playing responsibilities and keeping
containment constantly. It helps that this kind of coverage makes
it difficult for teams to run any kind of organized return other than
wedge returns.
The Next Level - If your kicker is good enough to
kick directionally you can get even better results by having him kick to
one corner or another. We haven't always had a kicker that could
do that reliably but when we did our goal was to put the ball inside the
10 and between the numbers and the sideline. Doing this
effectively cuts the field down so that your coverage team only has to
cover 2/3rds of the field. But it only works if your kicker is
good enough to do it reliably.
You might think this is a gimmick that will take more
practice time but actually we ran it as our regular kickoff AND onsides
kickoff team. We don't have to use extra practice time to learn it
because it's the only way we kickoff. Not having a separate hands
team saves us practice time and helps our players by keeping it simple
for them. We believe it makes other teams spend a little extra time to
prepare for it, however.
Our players believe in it, they get excited about it and
they have fun with it.