Untitled - Fast and Furious Football

SPECIALTEAMS 159
FIGURE 3 Inslde zone protection by punl
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BETURNER
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. Getting off on the baU. we teach ov
players to key the ball and concenhate only
on the ball. Teams will jump and shift in an
attempt to draw us offBides, so we must be
disciplined.
. Runnina ouer the legs of the blocken.
Thi. must be empha6i/ed r^ avord gFlling
tripped up. We practice running over
dummies to insur€ getting our legs up while
keeping our feet moving for'wad.
. Tahing the proper anele ,o our aiming
point is our nert step. We teach our outside
players to clear the block, &op th€ir inside
shoulder, and take an aiming point in fiont
of the punter. The aiming point will vary
depending on the depth of the punter and
how many st€ps he takes.
. ElimirLatinC the persob&l protector
(fallbach). We tl'lI the first man who clears
th€ line of scdmmage to attack the personal
protector's insid€ number. In doing this. we
create a shorter angle for the people who
clear latex
. Blarchine the punt. We talk about hands.
Our play€rs put their hands tog€ther and
look thrcugh th€m to the ball. This prevents
the ball from going between their arrm and
emphasizes keeping their eyes open.
. Leaaing lour feet is the nert point. We
teach our outside people to ext€nd thefu arDs
over their head and to jump across the
punter We teachthe outsideblock€rs to leap
towards the foot (leap for distance and not
height). Inside people are taught to jump up
instead of out and to ext€nd their hands in
front oftheir chest, not over their head.
. A.lvanciLe the bloched. punt. Players
should communicate and not fight over the
ball. The first man calls for the ball and
always scoops the ball in front of him, away
from the line of scrimmage and towad our
opponents goal line. Everyone else should
turn and find someone to block, making sure
we do not clip, hold, or block below the waist.
Delending Against Fakes
We anticipate fakes, and work very hard to make
a fake a dangercus gamble for our opposition. The
most impodant thing in delending a fake punt is
to believeyour oppon€nt will not only fake it, but
will execute the fak€ wel}.
We have a checklist to prepare for fakes. The
firut it€m on our checklist is for our players to
identify all €ligibl€s, including the fullback (personal
protector), punter, and interior slots. Be-
"ides having people drop offrhe linp. we assign
an extra player or players to guard against the
scle€n. Out of the 10 men on th€ line of scnnmage
at the snap, it is likely that 6 or morc men
are committed to defendine fakes and onty 3 or 4
to the block.
Some of the fakes to watch lor €ach week are
quite common, such as the tullback run on a downblock,
kick-out scheme. We attack this play ftom
both sides, and arc quite proficient in defending
the fake. Another fake, less common, is the opt
ron. Thp brggpsr advantage ol the opLion lrom a
punt forrnation is surprise, so when we work on
jt we assign option r€sponsibilities and a secondary
to rotate to it.
On our fake punt checklist, we also consider
other "attacks" not usually considercd as simple
fakes. The third down punt tops the list here.
Because we have had so much success at block'
ingpunts, sevenl teams have punted the ball on
third down with a puntins team inEefted-Iiom
th€ shadow oftheir goal line.
In oder to make sure we are ready for a thid
down punt, ourrcgular defense always has three
retums, and they usually get as much or more
practice time on them as our block team. As well
as having a block, a regular wall return, and a
"safe" retuln, we also prepare our defense for
quick kicks. W€ don't spend much time working
on blockingthe quick kick because, ifa block does
occur it usually happens quickly and with one