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Youth Football Coaching: The Kick Off Return And The Kick Off Team

Topic: SportsFeaturing Ed O' KeefePublished September 3, 2008

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In our youth football coaching program we also focus on the Kick Off Return and the Kick Off Team. These are two of the most effective weapons in youth football that you can have in your coaching program. We carry these weapons in our youth football coaching program so that we can have the tactics in winning every game that we're going to play. This is something that we give importance and focus specifically at our youth football coaching site. In this article I'm going to explain each of these two weapons. nn First off let's talk about the Kick Off Return, or the KOR. KOR is considered to be the most dangerous offensive weapon in the special teams. If you get the ball, start the half or start the kick, we expect and demand a touchdown every time we have the ball. It is at the way of the line up; you start at the 50 mark, you kick off at the 40 mark. The back line man is considered as the best guy here; he sets the whole thing up, and he's going to be the center. All of the guys in the team are 7 yards apart. Three guys split up in 12-13 yards to seal the lane. As for the alignment, it gets you the best offensive weapon. What we teach in our youth football coaching program is that the first responsibility is to make sure the ball goes over the opponents' head as soon as the ball is kicked. The second responsibility is to drop the guy from the center 2-14 yards, full- sprint head. This would take hours and hours of practice for the special teams.nn Now, let's talk about the Kick Off Team, or KOT. In our youth football coaching program, the KOT consists of 11 guys in the field. What we do is split the field in 3 lines. You get two hatches in the middle. We want the ball right outside the left hatch. The first 3 players are all inside the hatch (and these players are considered to be good athletes). The 4th player is the one who's usually going to make the tackle (and this player is considered to be an incredible athlete). The 5th player is going to be the kicker. Then we have the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th players. Players 1 to 6 are positioned inside the half way mark of the football field. The tactic here is to try to outnumber the enemy anywhere they go. The 7th player is located in the “dead center”. In the kicking game we just let the players stay in their lane; because the more you stay in the lane, the less gaps you create!

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