Three Keys to Championship Special Teams

Nearly every big game this year will have at least one game changing special teams play. If you look back at big games of every level, special teams always play a factor. At the high school level special teams can give you an advantage over your opponent when you are at a talent deficiency. We won a lot of games over the years because we had really good special teams. We also lost a few because of poor special teams. 

1. Celebrate Special Teams
Your attitude as a coaching staff is vital to the preparation and performance as a team on special teams. You can tolerate special teams, or you can celebrate special teams. Unfortunately, many programs tolerate special teams and their programs reflect this.

When you celebrate special teams you embrace them as a staff. You have the same passion, energy, and enthusiasm coaching special teams that you have for every other phase of the game. Your players will feed off you. You have to sell your players on the value of special teams, and how great special teams will help you win more games.

We had a special teams player or players of the week every single game. We honored them with something special. At one school we had special shirts for our special teams units. We had a championship belt that a guy got to wear on the sideline if he had a big hit or a takeaway on special teams. We had names for our units that our players took pride in. Again, it starts with coaches being passionate about coaching special teams.

2. Use Wrinkles
During my coaching career I have had the opportunity to coordinate special teams and special teams units at a few different schools. We always wanted to find a way to use special teams as a way to help us win games. We wanted to force people to have to prepare for our special teams. We wanted them to have to take time from offense and defense to have to look at what we did on special teams.

I learned a lesson my first year as an OC. While meeting on Sunday the head coach informed myself and the DC that we were going to take 10 minutes from our offensive and defensive preparation to work special teams. Our opponent was very good on special teams and had a few wrinkles we had to take time to prepare for. I carried this with me, and we made a decision to do some things a little bit different that would force teams to have to prepare.

How We Were Different
The first thing we did was added a cluster kickoff formation. Jerry Campbell, a coaching mentor of mine, introduced us to this in 1999. Coach Campbell had come up from Westwood High School in Round Rock, Texas to help us install some option and zone read concepts. We were talking about special teams, and he showed us the cluster kickoff. Below is a diagram of our cluster kickoff

We would start in the cluster and attack the ball. We would either onside, pooch kick, or break out to our normal kickoff formation. This did not take us much time to teach, but it forced our opponents to spend time preparing for our the different looks we would give. Here is a screen shot from a game showing the cluster.

Another element we added was using a gate formation after we scored. We would sprint to get lined up in our gate formation. After a touchdown teams often have their heads down. We wanted to take advantage of this and have a chance at a quick two point conversion. We had five gate concepts we could run, in addition to shifting to kick. The defense had to take time to prepare for our gate formation. We would install our gate formation during the first three days of camp when we were in shorts and shirts. Below is a picture of our gate formation:

We also added some wrinkles with our punt team. Our punt team would align and shift from one look to another. We would show a shield look from a balanced set and then an unbalanced look. We also would show one or two fakes early in the season. Again, this took time for our opponents to cover. Our punt return team would bring pressure each week. We always had a way to attack the weakness of a protection without having to install anything new.

3. Coach The Details
This is vital. Too often we install our specials in a team setting. There is nothing wrong with this, but at some point you have to teach the individual skills. We had a special teams block and return circuit, and a special teams cover circuit. We worked players through stations to help them to learn how to do their job.

We then worked an individual period, a group period, and a team period for special teams. We coached them just like offense and defense. We had 4 coaches involved in each special teams unit. We coached them on specific details for their position. We didn't just tell two guys they double-teamed L3, we worked it in an individual period. We didn't just talk to our jammers about how to wall off the gunner, we practiced it in our individual period. We taught them how to off hand jam, and what to do when they lost contact. Coaching the details is vital.

Special Teams Change Games
When we took over a program that had not won a game in 3 years, special teams helped us beat people were shouldn't beat. Every time we broke a big return we made it easier for our offense to score. Every time we recovered a kickoff we gained a possession, while taking a possession from our opponent.

We were smart on special teams. We never kicked deep if a team had a big-time returner. We kicked the ball to spaces, not people. When we covered, we covered with the intent to get the ball back. We wanted to be physical when we tackled and try to get the ball out. We never punted to great returner. We wanted to have a 35 yard change of possession.

When we returned our kicks we set up a simple return where we could create a crease and get vertical. We didn't try to bring a ball across the field running laterally. We got vertical and found a crease. Our punt return unit was very good at blocking kicks. We always brought pressure from somewhere, and worked hard to hold up cover guys. If our returner made a guy miss we felt like we could have a big return.

We won games we probably shouldn't have won because of our special teams. We felt like it was simple for us to install, but took time for our opponents to prepare. We were able to change momentum and ultimately win games because of our special teams.

To help you with your special teams, I put together an AWESOME special teams download that has EVERYTHING you need to be explosive on special teams and win more games. Here is a screenshot of everything included:

Coaches tell me this is EXACTLY what they have been looking for to improve their special teams. This has everything from video cut-ups to practice footage, to scouting packets, to teaching presentations. If you want to be more explosive on special teams, this is what you need! Click here to order yours today! Special Teams Resource

Here are a couple of additional screenshots!

If you are looking for specific resource you can use to help you be more effective with your game planning and more explosive on offense, check out my offensive game planning packet at  https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now! This helped us be able to be prepared to attack the defense and put more points on the board. It also helped us be much more efficient and targeted on the weekends when we were game planning. 

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators at all levels of football are using this. 

 Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

Five Keys To Explosive Special Teams

Winning football games is hard. If you have coached for more than a week you realize how difficult it can be to build a championship program. One of the most overlooked areas of winning programs is special teams. Special teams often go unnoticed until you lose a game because of a special teams mistake.

In many programs special teams are viewed as an inconvenience. Teams have to stop practicing offense and defense to work on special teams. Coaches sit in the office trying to figure out how much time they need to dedicate to special teams each week. They work their special teams hoping to simply survive when they call each unit onto the field.

We have evolved greatly over the last several years. We went from spending very little time on special teams to spending a great deal of time on special teams. As restrictions were placed on practice time, we found we had to be much more efficient with our approach to special teams. We found that we could be very effective dedicating 10 minutes a day to special teams during the season, and 20 minutes a day during camp.

Over the years we have been very successful on special teams, and found there were five keys to being explosive on special teams.

1. Keep Things Simple
The more complex we are, the more time we need to dedicate to special teams. By simplifying our schematics, we are able to be more efficient with our time. Over the years I have also found the more simple we are on special teams, the more explosive we are. We have less busts and more big plays. Our coverage is better on kicks, and our returns our better when our opponent kicks to us. By keeping things simple it is much easier to keep our coaches on the same page.

One example of simplifying things was with our punt team. For years we had four different punt formations. Each formation had different protection calls we had to communicate. This required a lot of practice time. And, we found that we had more busts and it was harder to prepare our two's if we had an injury. When we went to one punt scheme we were able to get more efficient with our practice time, while getting our 1's and 2's plenty of reps.

The numbers showed we were more successful. We improved our net punt average from 31.5 yards to 37 yards, and our punter wasn't as good. The same proved true with each of our units. We found that we were more explosive on our returns, and better in our coverage.

2. Play To Your Strengths
This was vital as early in my career we were stubborn with some things. If we have punter who is not very good, we are going to rugby kick away from the returner. If we have a coverage unit that lacks speed and the ability to tackle in space, we are going to pooch our kickoffs. This shrinks the amount of field we have to cover. If we have a great punt block guy, we are going to feature him in our block calls. We are not going to call a block to a player that is not effective at blocking kicks. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you be more explosive on special teams.

3. Great Preparation
We want to be very well-prepared each week for special teams and what our opponent will do. We break our preparation into two parts. First, we look at their schematics. Second, we look at their personnel. We want to look at how to attack the schemes, and figure out who their best and worst players are. We want to know who they are hiding. Everyone is hiding someone, and we want to find who that player is.

To prepare each week we divide up our responsibilities among our coaching staff. We spend 15 minutes watching opponent special teams film, and then we meet for 15 to 30 minutes talking about what we saw and building our plan for the week. The more coaches we have, the more targeted each coach can be. If have 5 coaches, we might assign each coach one special team to scout. If we have 10 coaches, we might put two coaches on each special team. One coach might look at every punt fake our opponent ran, while a second coach looks at their protection and coverage.

4. Build A Mentality
Building a mentality starts with each coach being all-in on special teams. Coaches must coach special teams with the same detail and enthusiasm that they coach offense and defense. Coaches must know the responsibility of the position they are coaching and the technical details. If everyone on your coaching staff values special teams, your players will as well. If one or two coaches don't coach special teams with enthusiasm, your players will not value special teams.

To build a mentality you must live what you are teaching. We talk about special teams changing games, and we reward great special teams plays. At a couple of programs we called our special teams "special forces," and we equated each unit to military units. We brought in soldiers and veterans to talk about the brotherhood of the military and the value of special forces.

If you want your players to value special teams, you have to value special teams as coaches.

5. Great Tempo
Special teams cannot drag. We want special teams to have great tempo, just like we would on offense and defense. We want to maximize our reps and make sure the 1's and 2's get quality reps. Again, this comes back to coaching. Our coaches must have great passion and enthusiasm and keeps things moving. We want to keep our coaching points to 8 seconds or less between reps.

These five keys have helped us to build explosive special teams that helped us win more games. There is nothing better than being able to change a game with a big special teams play.

To help you with your special teams, I put together an AWESOME special teams download that has EVERYTHING you need to be explosive on special teams and win more games. Here is a screenshot of everything included:

Coaches tell me this is EXACTLY what they have been looking for to improve their special teams. This has everything from video cut-ups to practice footage, to scouting packets, to teaching presentations. If you want to be more explosive on special teams, this is what you need! Click here to order yours today! Special Teams Resource

Here are a couple of additional screenshots!