Special Teams in practice

One of the biggest problems I've seen with special teams is the ST Coordinator is coaching and everyone else is standing back. I think in order to be effective you have to handle ST just like you handle O and D.

For example, we have a ST coordinator and he tells all of us how each position should be played.

During or ST period, say we are doing PUNT.

One coach has the snapper and holder.
One coach has the right side of the line + wing
One coach has the left side of the line + wing
One coach has the right bullet (gunner)
One coach has the left bullet
One coach has the personal protector - ST coordinator

All of our special teams are broken down that way except PAT block.

During 2-a-days we do one special team a day. Today we did punt, tomorrow we will do punt return, etc.

Once we are in season, we do offensive special teams on tuesday, defensive on wednesday.

We also handle ST just like we handle offense and defense. We have a depth chart, we discuss special teams and depth chart in our post practice meeting and make changes or adjustments as needed.

Another thing I've seen is kids who don't want to play special teams. Now I personally cannot comprehend not wanting to play special teams, I loved ST.
But you have to make ST "special"...I know that is a cliche' but what I mean is you have to convince the KO return team that it is a scoring unit, you have to convince the Punt coverage team that good coverage is worth 4-5 good defensive plays. You know stuff like that. You some how have to create an intrinsic desire to play special teams.

I've seen it done several ways, I even read about a coach somewhere that makes the players fill out an application in order to even be considered to play special teams. Have to find something that works for your team.