Marist Special Teams Drills One key to successful special teams play is repetition drills.
Every day before we go to a team period offensively or defensively, we have several periods of individual position drills. These periods are designed to help hone the individual players skills, so that the entire unit can function as one. We take that same approach with our special teams using our “Indy Specials” period.
In this individual period, we are never working as a full unit. Using drills, we isolate a specific technique or skill that applies to whichever two special teams units we will be working on later that day. Some of these drills help us work two separate techniques at the same time.
One of our most common drills is our “Get Off” drill. We use this drill to help members of our punt and punt return units. It allows players on the punt unit to work on their release technique when facing a hold up block by putting them in a confined space to get past the defender. It also allows players on the punt return team to work on their hold up technique. The offensive player has a two-way go and the defender must maintain good footwork while trying to force the offensive player outside of the cones (Diagram 1).
Our “Finish” drill allows us to work on techniques for all four major units. Members of the punt and kickoff units work on maintaining leverage on the returner while trying to stack the blocker. Members of the punt return and kickoff return units are working on recovering once they are beat. They are forced to put their bodies between the returner and the defensive man without getting a penalty (Diagram 2).
The “Stem and Avoid” drill is for our kickoff unit. It helps them work on either beating the blocker with speed to the kick direction or to the butt side. It is a pretty simple drill that doesn’t have a lot of moving parts, but it has helped us get positive results (Diagram 3).
Most problems we see on the kick return unit arise from one or more player’s inability to stay on their blocks in space. Our “Stick and Shuffle” drill helps them work on delivering a blow, getting good hand placement and moving their feet. This is critical for members of this unit (Diagram 4).
The key for us in all of these drills is making sure we use good footwork. Maintaining a good base and having the ability to come to balance quickly is critical to each individual player’s success. All of these drills have helped us get better this spring as a whole on special teams play, but the key for us is the repetition. Because we have our built in “Indy Specials” period, it allows us to constantly work on the fundamentals. Those 15 minutes each day are critical to our success on special teams.
About the Author: Tunde Agboke is the defensive line coach, special teams coach, and video coordinator at Marist College. He also coached at both Shippensburg University and William Patterson University. As a player, Agboke was a three-year starter and two-year captain at Southeast Missouri State.