Curious what your guys general philosophy/strategy is for recovering onside kicks?

In which direction?

In which direction?

Well... I guess w/ the understanding you don't know which direction.

But I am curious as to how the direction changes your plan.

Well... I guess w/ the understanding you don't know which direction.

But I am curious as to how the direction changes your plan.

I meant kicking or receiving.

I meant kicking or receiving.

Oh, that makes more sense. lol.

Recieving.

My general philosophy/strategy is to hope they get the damn ball.  🙂

I always have my best hands guys on kick return, and I assume every kick is going to be on-sides. That's all we really work on in practice, I line them up and kick 20 or so kicks at them so they can try to get used to fielding that sucker.

I've had AC's express that we should work on a kick-off return for deep(er) kicks, as we don't have a return per se.  If it goes over their heads/past them, I tell them to block first guy to them. Which they rarely do, and I don't necessarily get on them because I don't teach them to do it.  I just want the ball, and on deep kicks I figure it's one of my best two ball carriers in space against probably 6 of their kids (figure 2-3 of my guys will actually block someone, and there will be a few kids on the kickoff team out of position to make a play).  I know I could do better than that, but I'm afraid that having a return scheme will distract them from recovering an on-sides kick. Okay, what that means is that I'm not confident I can coach it well enough for that (distracting from recovery) not to happen. I want ALL of the team's focus to be on gaining possession of the ball.

Generally through the years we recover (on the kicking side) far more than we give up (on the receiving side). This year I think we gave up two in 8 games. We recovered (from kicking) probably 6 or so, I don't recall exactly.

Am interested in the responses...

Curious what your guys general philosophy/strategy is for recovering onside kicks?

Which kind?  Sky, pooch, line-drive, squib...?  Trying to kick a liner as hard as possible at a player so that it bounces off of him is very different than kicking a sky/mortar/fade that we're hoping to catch.

--Dave

Which kind?  Sky, pooch, line-drive, squib...?  Trying to kick a liner as hard as possible at a player so that it bounces off of him is very different than kicking a sky/mortar/fade that we're hoping to catch.

--Dave

Sorry, I can see how my wording is confusing. I mean recovering them as the recieving team.

Watching some of these PWSB games, some of these kids are OUSTANDING at these onside kicks. Just thinking that hoping to recover def isn't enough. Has to be a better plan than just line up your best players & hope they catch it.

My general philosophy/strategy is to hope they get the damn ball.  🙂

I always have my best hands guys on kick return, and I assume every kick is going to be on-sides. That's all we really work on in practice, I line them up and kick 20 or so kicks at them so they can try to get used to fielding that sucker.

I've had AC's express that we should work on a kick-off return for deep(er) kicks, as we don't have a return per se.  If it goes over their heads/past them, I tell them to block first guy to them. Which they rarely do, and I don't necessarily get on them because I don't teach them to do it.  I just want the ball, and on deep kicks I figure it's one of my best two ball carriers in space against probably 6 of their kids (figure 2-3 of my guys will actually block someone, and there will be a few kids on the kickoff team out of position to make a play).  I know I could do better than that, but I'm afraid that having a return scheme will distract them from recovering an on-sides kick. Okay, what that means is that I'm not confident I can coach it well enough for that (distracting from recovery) not to happen. I want ALL of the team's focus to be on gaining possession of the ball.

Generally through the years we recover (on the kicking side) far more than we give up (on the receiving side). This year I think we gave up two in 8 games. We recovered (from kicking) probably 6 or so, I don't recall exactly.

Am interested in the responses...

That's pretty much all we've done, but I feel like there has to be a better way. Especially w/ these kickers that really know what they're doing.

I stole what we do from a clinic PSL Rob's old HC (Jeff Miret) did on special teams one year.

We designate four kids on our team as "Terminators". We sell it as a position of honor. Only the meanest, biggest hitters get promoted to Terminator. All they need to be able to do is attack kids and accept the fact that they will never ever ever ever get the ball on special teams. Don't look at the ball. Don't run to the ball. The ball does not exist. You are a killing machine, go kill someone.

Assuming a common bouncing onside kick to one sideline here is what we do.

The Terminators are the first ones across the line on our kick off and the front row on onside return. All they do is run straight forward and take out the closest guy to them when they line up. For recovery we have a two man second row 5-10 yards behind the first row who run forward to where the first line started and fall on the ball. We keep two kids on the wide side of the field, one about 20 yards deep and on the ball, one behind the terminator line 30 yards deep and one kid on the 15 or 20 and on the goal post just in case they kick deep or the ball squirts through. Looks like this:

K K K K K K    B    K K K K

T  T  T            M          T

2  2              2          2

    3

                    4

We align like coach matt does

We also tight ends or rbs in the even numbers

-----1-----2-----3----------4----------5
--------6-----7------------8-------9
-
-----------10
---------------------11

1,3,5 are usually center (mlb) and guards (def ends)
6 and 8 are rbs or tight ends
7 and 9 are wrs
10 and 11 are the best catchers and runners (stud players)

We dont mpp special teams

I stole what we do from a clinic PSL Rob's old HC (Jeff Miret) did on special teams one year.

We designate four kids on our team as "Terminators". We sell it as a position of honor. Only the meanest, biggest hitters get promoted to Terminator. All they need to be able to do is attack kids and accept the fact that they will never ever ever ever get the ball on special teams. Don't look at the ball. Don't run to the ball. The ball does not exist. You are a killing machine, go kill someone.

Assuming a common bouncing onside kick to one sideline here is what we do.

The Terminators are the first ones across the line on our kick off and the front row on onside return. All they do is run straight forward and take out the closest guy to them when they line up. For recovery we have a two man second row 5-10 yards behind the first row who run forward to where the first line started and fall on the ball. We keep two kids on the wide side of the field, one about 20 yards deep and on the ball, one behind the terminator line 30 yards deep and one kid on the 15 or 20 and on the goal post just in case they kick deep or the ball squirts through. Looks like this:

K K K K K K    B    K K K K

T  T  T            M          T

2  2              2          2

    3

                    4

Good stuff, although the shortside looks very concerning. No issues there?

We designate four kids on our team as "Terminators". We sell it as a position of honor. Only the meanest, biggest hitters get promoted to Terminator. All they need to be able to do is attack kids and accept the fact that they will never ever ever ever get the ball on special teams. Don't look at the ball. Don't run to the ball. The ball does not exist. You are a killing machine, go kill someone.

This used to be our approach until they changed the rule about giving the receiving team a chance to catch the ball.

--Dave

I've just treated it the same as fumble recovery, same drill.  The only difference is that I'll tell them that if the kick is very short, like it just dribbles forward a bit and obviously isn't going to advance 10 yards, I'll give a "poison" call.

Just don't line up right on your restraining line, that's a sucker move.  It's like playing with your infield in in baseball.

This used to be our approach until they changed the rule about giving the receiving team a chance to catch the ball.

--Dave

Ya, we had to tweak what we do when we onside kick. But we didn't change the approach on onside kick recovery. Only thing we changed were the numbers so we could match p with the four players on one side rule.