The Big Play

By the time you read this headline, someone’s special teams just made another
by: Jim Boccher
Special Teams Coach, University of Michigan
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There is not a head coach in the country that won’t expound on the importance of having good special teams play. We all know how to say the right thing, but unless a head coach is truly committed to special teams, your players will look at the “teams,” as we call them at Michigan, as just a break between offense and defense. But most importantly, special teams must be important to the head coach.

Why are special teams so important? For one, special teams account for approximately 20 percent of the snaps in any given game. With this in mind, your meeting and practice time should at least reflect this percentage. That means for every hour of meetings you have as a team, 15 minutes should be devoted to special teams. On the practice field this equates to four or five periods of special teams for every 24 periods of practice (with each period representing five minutes, 24 periods would be a typical two hour practice). Keep in mind; these figures are the minimum amount of time that should be spent on special teams. While the proportion of practice time should be a reflection of snaps taken in a game, there is another variable that should influence more special teams work – “the big play.” There is not an offensive or defensive coordinator in America that doesn’t stress the importance of either creating or limiting big plays. On offense, you may want five big plays or “game breakers” each week. On defense, your success is largely predicated upon limiting your opponent’s big plays. A defense should always make the offense “earn it” by not permitting any cheap scores. There is no other aspect of the game that has more big play potential than special teams. The reasons are simple. Special teams are played in the open field. “Teams” players must be able to:

1) Maintain blocks in space
2) Defeat Blocks in space
3) Make someone miss
4) Make an open field tackle

When special teams are viewed in this manner, it is easy to see the big play possibilities. A coach can be certain that special teams will determine at least two games on your schedule this season. Without question, we at Michigan had three games impacted by special teams in 2001, both positively and negatively.

The third area of the game that illustrates the importance of special teams is field position. I recently conducted a study that examined the starting field position for a team’s offenses and how it related to their chance of scoring either a touchdown or a field goal. This chart demonstrates how important field position really is. Just look at your team’s chances of scoring if the kickoff return is advanced past the 30-yard line. What if the punter could pin opponents inside the 10-yard line or the opposing offense never achieved possession of the ball past their own 40-yard line? Consider this, every ten yards you gain on a punt return is one less first down that your offense needs to get.

How does a head coach emphasize the importance of special teams his players? The single most effective way to do this is to put the best players on the “teams”. This accomplishes several things. First of all, it makes these units stronger for the obvious reason that the top personnel is being utilized. Secondly, the commitment to win each and every play is made clear to every player. It demonstrates to the rest of the team you consider special teams to be as vital as the offense and defense. It establishes a certain level of performance that everyone must uphold.

At the University of Michigan, I am fortunate to work for a head coach in Lloyd Carr who is committed to maintaining great special teams. No player is too good for the “teams.” Case and point is the recent success we have had with our punt rush team. Last season we blocked a school record seven punts, largely due to the personnel we had on the team. Marquise Walker, our leading receiver and owner of many school records, was a standout performer on our punt rush team. Marquise blocked three punts (and set up several other blocks and caused numerous shanks) over the past two seasons that resulted in a touchdown, a field goal and a safety. His performance and success on this unit inspired our other players to participate on a high level on this team. They all saw how they could impact the game and help Michigan win. Not limiting your personnel pool is the first way to emphasize special teams to your players. As a general rule of thumb, I never hesitate to assign any offensive or defensive starter to two of the six special teams and any reserve to as many as all six.

The second way to demonstrate the importance of special teams is to involve offensive and defensive coaches in different phases of the “teams.” For example, at Michigan, both defensive coordinator Jim Herrmann and offensive coordinator Terry Malone coach the right and left side of our punt team respectively. We benefit not only from having two great teachers coaching these units, but it also demonstrates the importance of this phase of the game to our players. Even though we utilize our entire coaching staff in different phases of the game, I coordinate the meetings and practice agenda for organizational purposes. We like to say that we “Coach with many eyes, but one voice.” What I mean is, we all want to use the same coaching points and terms so that everyone is on the same page.

Another way to demonstrate a stern commitment to special teams to your players is to meet on special teams as a full team, players and coaches included. This has several benefits. For one, position coaches, who may not be involved in a specific phase, may rather meet individually for the fifteen-minute special teams meeting. However, their presence at these meetings has a great impact on the players. Secondly, Coach Carr will sit right in front and make coaching points during this meeting; this undoubtedly impacts how serious the players view the sessions. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, when players know that the entire team is going to watch their performance on special teams, there is a significant impact. Players, just like coaches, do not want to look bad in front of their peers. This is a positive form of peer pressure that establishes a standard of performance that even us as coaches cannot duplicate. In turn, when the players do well and get acknowledged in front of the rest of the team, it motivates others not only to participate on special teams, but also to excel on them.

Once you have selected the best personnel for your special teams, assigned the high profile coaches to a particular phase and established a certain level of performance for the players, you are moving in the right direction. The next step is to establish specific motivating tools and criteria to maintain the expected level of performance. As I previously stated, one of the most effective methods of motivation is peer pressure. One way to create this sense of accountability to one another is through the use of a production chart . At Michigan we use such a production chart on a game-to-game basis and also maintain cumulative statistics. Such a production chart awards points for individual accomplishments such as a tackle, fumble recovery, blocked kick, etc.... However, we also reward each member of an entire unit for a particularly exceptional play as well. For example, if the punt team downs a punt inside the 10-yard line, each player on that team will receive two points. Or if the kickoff return team has a return of 30 or more yards, each player on that team will be rewarded as well. This is important because although we want individual players to be productive and make plays, we can’t forget about the guy on the front line that made the block that sprung the return man on his long return. In addition to giving positive points for good plays, we also include a few categories that deduct points from a player’s total. Committing a penalty or committing a turnover is inexcusable and can cost us a game and would therefore result in negative points for that player. But overall, the idea behind the production board is to generate positive reinforcement. Praise the action you want to see repeated. Each week we will post this board and the players can see who is producing and who is not. You will see that the players become competitive with each other and strive to become better special teams performers. As I said before, there is no motivational substitute for accountability to your teammates and competition.

Another motivator that we use that ties into the production board is the “Special Forces” club. The top special teams performers of each game receive a T-shirt, which are coveted by our players. Just giving out T-shirts without a standardized method for doing so will quickly lose its emphasis as a motivating tool. When our players become a member of the Special Forces, they are recognized as players who have produced and helped Michigan win.

The last and most powerful motivating tool for special teams is the selection of a weekly special teams captain. I believe there is no greater honor a player can receive than to represent his team as a captain. This is something our players take great pride in. On a weekly basis, we as coaches decide who has produced in games, practiced like a champion, and exemplified all that it means to be a captain for Michigan.

While we have already discussed means to motivate and evaluate individual players and units of the special teams, we also want to look at the big picture. We do this by setting goals on a week-to-week basis. I strongly believe that when establishing your goals for special teams there are certain rules you must abide by. They are as follows:

1) Never have more than ten goals. Your players won’t remember more than this and you don’t have enough meeting time as a coach to emphasize that many goals. The more goals you have, the more watered down they become.
2) Select goals that are measurable and relative to your philosophy.
3) Base your special teams goals around field position and big plays. You’ve talked about why these areas are important, now include them in your goals.
4) Choose attainable goals. If you don’t have a punter that can punt the ball forty yards, don’t set your net punt at forty-one yards.
5) Have clear goals for each phase of the special teams.

Examples of this goal setting philosophy would be as follows:

1) Net punt - 38 yards or more.
2) Punt Return - 10 yards per return or opponent net punt of 33 yards or block 1 punt.
3) Kickoff Return - Average start of the 28 yard line.
4) Kickoff Cover - Hold opponents to average start of 24 yard line.
5) PAT/FG - 100% of all PAT’s and 67% of all FG’s.
6) PAT/FG Block - Block a kick or hold opponent to 50% on FG’s.
7) Force a Game breaker (Block a kick, recover onsides, force a turnover, score a TD, execute a fake).
8) Allow no Game breakers to the opponent.
9) No Penalties.

As you can see, these goals are designed to account for teams that pooch their kickoffs or shank their punts. I don’t want to penalize our teams for poor return averages if our field position is good. We also incorporate the big play philosophy of “game breakers” in addition to field position goals.

Lastly, when developing schemes for your special teams, it is important that you utilize schemes that optimize your meeting and practice times. We as coaches can get carried away with the chalk, but when all is said and done, execution is based on talent, the players understanding of the scheme, and the player’s ability to perform the basic fundamentals necessary for them to carry out their responsibility within that scheme. Remember, your special teams players are playing and learning their respective offensive and defensive positions. You may only have them for 15 minutes of meeting time and 25 minutes on the practice field for all six phases of special teams. Therefore the first priority is teaching schemes they can understand and execute. Then repeatedly drill the skills they need to execute their assignments. Special teams are too important to neglect. If a player does not know his assignment or gets confused and a punt gets blocked then you have beat yourself.

One example of this approach would be our punt rush philosophy. I have already discussed the success that we’ve had with this team and our philosophies are quite simple. However we drill these principles to the finest detail daily and at a high tempo. These are our keys to blocking punts:

1) Crowd the L.O.S. Get your hand in front of your head and you will always be onside.
2) Get in an explosive stance. Weight forward, rear end up in the air, toes and power angles pointing straight up field.
3) See the ball. On a punt, both the offense and the defense are going on ball movement. The man with the quicker reaction has the advantage.
4) Vertically stretch the protection with great burst up field. Stay low and come out hard.
5) Bend and drive to the block spot. Lower your blocking surface and dip your inside shoulder. Use your hands to keep the punt protectors off of you.
6) Shoot your hands at the last moment and take the ball off the punter’s foot. Keep your feet and run through the block spot.
7) If you can’t block the punt, stay outside of the block spot and get back into the return.

On a game-by-game basis we may run a particular twist or scheme that we feel can exploit a particular protection, but our basic principles never change. Select the right personnel, keep it simple and coach technique.

In conclusion, it is both an honor and privilege to be able to share some of our ideas at the University of Michigan with my colleagues in the coaching profession. Don’t ever underestimate the importance of your job as a football coach. Now, more than ever, your role as a teacher and a mentor to the young men of our country cannot be taken for granted. The values and life-lessons that our sport teaches are exactly what the young people of America need to get along and succeed in this new world.

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