Player Rotation Argument

ya I'd rather rotate people on O too.
We're a small school and everyone on our special teams is a starter on one side of the ball or a contributor on both. We're confident they can do it good though, since they are contributors and solid players anyways.
But for the most part, we try to keep our 2 way starters off of special teams. If they are, its on kickoff and punt. But they seem to always have enough gas to return kicks though. funny how that works.

I believe it depends on how bad they suck and what role they could play.

Punt and KO are great places to break kids in at. If you spend time on these units everyday, you could put non-starters there and develop them to become starters, just by involving them in a position role.

** IF you're coaching these positions, you can develop the talent
** IF you're just sticking bodies in a spot and putting the ball in play, then just put your studs out there

We have a pretty unique situation in that we have very few kids I would try and "hide", and most of those kids play receiver. However our studs are just that...studs! Their kids you want on everything, but we know we can't do that all the time or we'll wear them down. We have 3 kids that can play TB, so it was my thought to rotate them there since 2 of the 3 will play on defense (we also get a defensive rotation here as well). S/t's is not the place to rotate them IMO, but the header wants to rotate them on s/t's. He actually doesn't want any starters on s/t's, but due to our low numbers, we aren't going to be able to get away with that.

Duece

Special Teams not place to get kids their letters unless you can outscore everybody you play. If a kid can't run and hit he can't contribute there.

As header I coach Kickoff Coverage and Punt teams because of influence they have on field position. Perhaps not coincidentally we have worst KOC in America.

We tell kids Punt is most important play in Football - only one in our Offense we can gain 30 yards every time.

We actually rotate kids more on Defense but we also spend more time on it (about half hour more a week). Or maybe we just have more kids that are closer there.

Would really like Offensive Linemen to play only one way but can't always do it (dressed 20 kids plus our Soccer player-Kicker first two games).

I think you can rotate skill kids (we have rested two-way kids at RB and WR) but OL must function as a unit to be effective. You could grade out at 90% and never make a 1st Down (different guy screws up each play).

So I guess I find myself on your side of the "discussion," Duece.

We quick kick from the gun for our punt, so our starting offense is on the field.

However, we "fake" quite a bit, so teams play us in a normal defense. In 3 years, we've only had 3 returns for about 25 yards total. We've had one blocked.

Get a ton of hit and rolls.

Back to the matter at hand, we also will not "hide" kids on defense........either you are competent or on the bench.

On offense, however, we can take a different approach, because we are dictating the direction of attack.

We try to do what kids are good at.......we've gotten by the last couple games with our slots catching 1 pass for 5 yards. Our starters were wiped out by injury, so we had to play two sophomores a TON.

We spent the week making sure 1.) They knew who and how to block on the perimeter, and 2.) they knew how to stay the hell out of the way of our SE's on pass routes.

We got one kid that is a great Iso blocker, but he is new to the program and is unfamiliar with our other concepts........we can put him in on two-back (getting a starter some rest), and run Iso, Boot, and something away from him.

Identify what your non-starters do well, and build off that when they are in the game (got a kid that run and catch hitch?)........I'm not saying feed them the ball, but knowing what they can do (and more importantly what they can't do), will make your substituting on offense go much easier.

We take Brophy's approach on kick-off. EVERYONE on the team runs kick-off during a twenty minutes session on Wednesdays......lanes, fits, etc.

If we have an ironman, he knows this is where he can get his break.

I'll clarify my earlier statements.....

If a kid has no business being on the field and is physically and mentally incompetent, for safety reasons he has no business on the field.

now, assuming the kid is able to actually function as an athlete, it is important to get him on the field in some capacity to give him a role (keep him focused), and work him into the game (and hopefully give your starters a blow).

I've worked on many staffs where headers talked on and on about how special teams was important, but we really never TAUGHT how to play special teams. I was fortunate at one point to coach with a good group of guys (header was a close friend) where we would spend 20 minutes at the start of practice EVERY DAY teaching special teams to the entire team (teaching specific roles / stations) via circuit work.

With that preface, you can actually put guys on the field, give them a specific job (that isn't going to change), whereas a million things could happen if they were on O/D (what-ifs).

We could put nearly anyone on kickoff (though gunners and kickers were key) and on punt we could put sub guys (2nd team Defense) at G - T and up-backs. Punt return for us was just a defensive play (and our best 11 played defense).

The only time I agree with putting sub par players in on special teams is if they give great effort. I can find a place for any kid on special teams if they have a motor....that being said, more times than not, these kids are already starting anyways.....but yea, dont hide kids on special teams....let them run a play in and block backside for offense

You need to role play your special teams and coach their talents as Brophy mentioned. These are starting positions in my opinion, and I'm not fricken putting someone on the edge of my punt return unit (which always goes for the block) if he can't put his hand down, accelerate well, or use his hands. Last year for us, that was our starting tailback, this year, its a defensive end. Next year, it could be my backup receiver, the point is, if they're playing special teams, they have prerequisite skills that we will coach up. I'm not hiding anyone there.

We rotate our worst at DL and Wide Receiver, and we limit it to one bad player at a time. On the DL, we typically stick him at nose and he's in for 2-3 plays at a time max. I coach the DL up too... if he's a turd, he will be good at making a pile and taking 2 OL with him. If he's in on a play which requires much more than that, I made a mistake as the coach and did not put my team/player(s) in a position to be successful. If he had to play more than that b/c of numbers, he would be at nose playing the same concept, only I would also try to get his bull rush to a point where he could push the pocket a little bit.

I don't know how big your OL are but we're not trusting our guards to cover and try to tackle in space.

We kick out of bounds usually but more often than not our guards are also linebackers.

Learned this lesson the hard way this Saturday.

We won 49-34 but were up 41-0 at the half. We subbed some of our depth in on special teams and paid for it. A kick and punt return taken to the house; opened up the flood gates.