The Indianapolis Glazier Clinic was a medium sized clinic with a small but enthusiastic contingent of youth football coaches. It had been great to see guys from all the way from Cincinnatti there that ran my system this past year the very first time.
I got to the clinic just over time to see some excellent speakers including an unique Teams guru that had sent a number of kickers to Division I and NFL teams. I acquired the opportunity to pay attention to an Illinois Hall of Fame High School coach, Mike Rude talk about the nuances of his famous Shotgun 'T' Series as well as hear an old 11 year NFL vet speak about connecting to players Clay Matthews Jersey. I had breakfast one-on-one with a High School head coach from El Paso whose team set numerous Texas Passing Records. I'd the pleasure of sharing a ride with fellow speaker David Tennison, the Defensive Coordinator from Jenks Senior high school in Oklahoma and also got an opportunity to talk to him about the 40 minute trip to the airport as well as when we waited for our flights. Jenks as many individuals know is really a perennial USA Today Top ten Program. It had been non stop football for 3 days and 2 nights and as usual I came away the greater for that experience. W e do not go to this stuff using the idea we're looking for new football plays or new schemes, just possible ways to complete our goals and also to see how other successful coaches and programs do things.
Kickoff Coverage
An area I thought we needed improvement on was our kickoff coverage. We onside kick having a mob or pooch kick until we are leading by 3 touchdowns, only then do we kick deep. Our onside and pooch kick coverage has been excellent. In the last 8 seasons Clay Matthews Jersey, we now have yet to possess a return for any touchdown and our recovery rates have ranged from about 5 %-30 %. Our theory is, why place the ball at the disposal of the other teams best player "in space", when we're not holding a gun to your head to do so? They want the ball for the reason that guys hands, how come I want to give the other team exactly what they need?
Deep Kicks
What hasn't looked so great for us has been our deep kickoff coverage. We simply haven't bothered to put a descent coverage scheme in place or even practice covering deep kicks. Part of my insufficient coaching effort in this area comes from priorities and part originates from the fact that if we are up by 3 or even more scores and kick deep we actually don't care if there is a descent return or otherwise. But when a part of our charge as youth football coaches is to pursue excellence in every part of the game, our deep kick coverage was in will need a large amount of work.
High School Legend and the Kick Coverage Concepts
Phil Acton is really a High School coach having a tremendous history of success, especially in the special teams arena. His kick off coverage team hadn't had a kickoff return for any touchdown in over Two decades and last season had just 2 returns go past the 30 yard line Clay Matthews Jersey. Phil is firmly convinced the "lane theory" that most kick-off coverage teams use doesn't make much sense. He drew up numerous returns that showed the sheer silliness of this concept. If the opposing team were to receive the kick about the right hash and the returner ran the ball upright the right hash, the kicking teams players about the left hash and to the left from the left hash would be wasted players if they stayed in their lanes. These left hash defenders could even be left unblocked, allowing the return team to use double teams and numbers to overwhelm the policy team in which the return team wanted to focus its return.
Phil had a very simple concept imparted to any or all his kick coverage players: keep your returner before and inside of you. So if you are on the left side of the returner, you'd adjust pursuit road to insure the ball carrier was in front of but also inside your right shoulder. The defenders would continue to adjust their pursuit paths to insure they were not being outflanked. The ball carrier rather than having to beat 2-3 players that are in or at the 'lane' he made a decision to run in, he has to beat 8-10 defenders. Phil also suggested directional kicking so his teams had to only defend a portion of as opposed to the entire field. He always wanted to kick from the biggest return man making that returner run to field the football.
Kick Coverage for Youth Football
When coaching youth football it is necessary that you understand the importance of special teams. Your kick coverage team is not the one you load up all your non-starters on, that is an occur. Open space tackling is one thing most of your non-starters avoid perfectly in most cases. In my opinion "Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan" we provide you with much safer and player development friendly methods of getting those kids playing time, but it surely isn't on the kickoff team.
Youth Football Coaching Adjustment
In youth football it may seem sensible to add a small adjustment for this strategy. A simple method to force the ball carrier towards the inside is always to position your boxing leads to positions that would force the ballcarrier to the core field or even better to 1 side of the field, which means you have less field to protect. You could also assign your very best open field tacklers aside you are forcing to. As the majority of you know, I don't like to recommend anything we have not heavily field tested with a variety of teams, ages, skill sets and competition, so I'm not advocating this method at this time. But this is an area we are looking at very closely for next season. I've never been a fan of lanes and the simple "in front of inside" method, seems to seem sensible and worth a hard search for next fall.
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