Improving your kickoff coverage is one of the most effective ways to tilt the field in your favor and put pressure on your opponent. In this video, we'll break down the critical responsibilities of Hot, Force, and Alley players in the Villanova Deep Left kickoff coverage scheme.
The video below shows a portion of Matt Colangelo's Glazier Drive video: How to Overlap Kickoff & Punt Coverage. It includes practice film of how they drill the skills.
Coach Colangelo is the Special Teams Coordinator at Villanova.
Philosophy
Growth through consistency. With limited time for special teams in practice, you have to be consistent with who you are as a coach, in your preparation, and what you are asking them to do.
Less is more. They all have offensive or defensive positions as well as special teams. The less they have to think, the faster they can play. Present a clean and simple plan allows them to do more and play faster.
Attack Mindset. Going to have an aggressive mindset. Come after punts. Aggressive in formations and motions.
Character Traits: Play hard, be tough, do your job, care about special teams
Job Descriptions
Hot-reckless playmaker:
- Go to ball now.
- Any blocker = spill
- No leverage responsibility; cross face of returner.
Force-aggressive contain player:
- Set the edge
- Return to you = send ball back inside
- Return away = heels of returner
Alley-cleanup duty:
- Return your way = aggressive fill from outside.
- Return away aggressive fold.
