Part to Whole Special Teams Installation

By Justin Jehn and Dieter Antoni
Head Coach and Special Teams Coordinator
West Salem High School (WI)
Twitter: @WestSalemFB

We experienced struggles and became frustrated because of our play on special teams. We were inefficient in practice and ineffective in game execution. When Coach Antoni took over as Special Teams Coordinator, we addressed the concerns in several ways. Our main goal was to organize our special teams practice and structure like we did offense and defense, which included installing schemes from part to whole.

First, we assign position coaches for each special team position. We leverage prior special teams coaching experience and align fundamentals a coach teaches to his position group on offense or defense with the skills that are taught to a special team’s position group. For instance, our coaches with experience coaching punters and long snappers were assigned to the punters and long snappers, respectively. Additionally, we assign an offensive line coach to coach the punt team front 6 because the punt protection technique we use parallels the zone blocking technique we employ. Coaching assignments and responsibilities appear daily on the practice plan as shown below.

Secondly, we divide our special team units into groups. We group LBs and DBs for 7 on 7 work and OL and RBs for run games reps. We duplicate that strategy for each special team unit as follows:

• Shield Punt Team: Left Side (LE, LT, LG), Right Side (RG, RT, RE), Shield, P/LS
• Punt Return Team: Rushers, Cover guys, Returners
• Kickoff Team: K, Busters, Wave 2, Contain
• Kick Return: Front Wall, Second Wall, Returners
• Extra Point/Field Goal: Left Side (LW, LE, LT), Interior (LG, LS, RG), Right Side (RT, RE, RW), K/H

For our punt protect and cover team, we combine the left and right side to work protection and coverage, while the shield works their technique and the snappers and punters get reps together.