The kick off is the last bastion of conventionality in fb. You kick it deep as you can and if it's run back, you tackle the guy as fast as you can. If you're behind at the end of the game, you squib it along the ground, hoping it isn't fielded cleanly and you can recover. New thinking is needed. Need to open it up.

Why not vary it with distances, directions and trajectories? Make the receiving team cover the field and anticipate any and all possibilities. Start with the squib.

If a kicker kicks the ball hard, at the very top, the ball drives into the ground and goes way up in the air, 10 to 20 yards down field. May have to experiment with ball angle on the tee, angle of kicking foot into the ball, etc., but could it be done reliably with practice?

Then, the first wave of defenders ignore the ball and block the guys waiting for the ball to come down. A second wave would come behind them and catch it or recover it as it bounces. Since it hits the ground before going straight up, there would be no fair catch.

Also, vary with low kicks to open places 20/30 yards down field. Hell, drive a line drive into the chest of the guy opposite the ball. Have two kickers approach the ball and they don't know which will kick it until they do.

Since we're not going to have a kicker who can get the ball deep enough into the end zone and we don't have the sense to kick it out of bounds, why can't we apply some creative thinking to it? Maybe, even then? Can't be that it's too much of a macho thing, can it?

Given our extremely mediocre special team play and the fact that our kicker can never reach the endzone, we should just kick it out of bounds on every kickoff. That gives the opposing team pretty good field position at the 35 yard line, but that's a lot better than the long returns we routinely see, and it's a helluva lot better than a 98 yard runback for a TD.

Agree with all. I have always wondered about a strategy that looked to try to line drive the ball as hard as possible RIGHT at one of the guys at the 45. All these kickers essentially played soccer growing up. They SHOULD be able to smash the heck out of it as if they were looking to go far post from the 12 meter mark.

But the best strategy? Find a kid with a leg and tell them to drive it out of the endzone every time.

Golden One;842599182 said:

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Given our extremely mediocre special team play and the fact that our kicker can never reach the endzone, we should just kick it out of bounds on every kickoff. That gives the opposing team pretty good field position at the 35 yard line, but that's a lot better than the long returns we routinely see, and it's a helluva lot better than a 98 yard runback for a TD.

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The receiving team can opt to back you up 5 yards and make you rekick.

Regarding rules and squib kicks... some here have stated that we could've tried to recover the bizarre deep kickoff last week. Is that right? What are the rules for something being a recoverable kick? Does it have to hit the ground in the first 10 yards or is any kickoff live after it hits the ground?

Golden One;842599182 said:

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Given our extremely mediocre special team play and the fact that our kicker can never reach the endzone, we should just kick it out of bounds on every kickoff. That gives the opposing team pretty good field position at the 35 yard line, but that's a lot better than the long returns we routinely see, and it's a helluva lot better than a 98 yard runback for a TD.

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In college, when a kick goes out of bounds, the receiving team has three options: Take the ball at the 35, take the ball where it went out of bounds, or require the kicking team to re-kick from 5 yards deeper. (The option to make a team re-kick is why teams don't just kick out of bounds when they have a lead with less than a minute left. It's why the squib kick exists instead.)

Any team who intentionally kicked out of bounds as a matter of routine practice would be met with teams who force that team to re-kick. The opposing team would obviously realize that the kicking team must have MAJOR coverage problems and would try to take advantage of that, aided by the additional 5 yards.

boredom;842599201 said:

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Regarding rules and squib kicks... some here have stated that we could've tried to recover the bizarre deep kickoff last week. Is that right? What are the rules for something being a recoverable kick? Does it have to hit the ground in the first 10 yards or is any kickoff live after it hits the ground?

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The rule is that after the ball travels more than 10 yards, it is a live ball regardless of whether it has hit the ground. Theoretically, you could do a pop-up onside kick if your kicker could get under the ball enough to make it go straight into the air for 10 yards. But nobody would do that because the receiving team could then call for a fair catch. The ball hitting the ground negates the ability to call for a fair catch, so kickers have instead developed the technique of making the ball bounce off the ground first and then pop high into the air.

boredom;842599201 said:

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The receiving team can opt to back you up 5 yards and make you rekick.

Regarding rules and squib kicks... some here have stated that we could've tried to recover the bizarre deep kickoff last week. Is that right? What are the rules for something being a recoverable kick? Does it have to hit the ground in the first 10 yards or is any kickoff live after it hits the ground?

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Any kick is live after ten yards. I don't believe it has to hit the ground.

In the Holmoe era we lost a kickoff where the other team kicked it to the 10 or 15 and the return men just stared at each other and let it drop in front of them. Ah, Holmoe.

OaktownBear;842599211 said:

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Any kick is live after ten yards. I don't believe it has to hit the ground.

In the Holmoe era we lost a kickoff where the other team kicked it to the 10 or 15 and the return men just stared at each other and let it drop in front of them. Ah, Holmoe.

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Ah, yes. And then there's the time Cal kicked off at the start of BOTH halves vs USC. Doh!

bluehenbear;842599834 said:

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Ah, yes. And then there's the time Cal kicked off at the start of BOTH halves vs USC. Doh!

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There was also the time where we fielded the kick in the end zone, ran out to the 2-yard line, then stepped back into the end zone and took a knee (oops).

A kick off is live after 10 yards, but it does have to hit the ground at some point.
The receiving team has the option of calling a fair catch for a "pop up" kickoff if it is simply "pooched" into the air - and if the kicking team makes contact with the receiver who called the fair catch, there is a penalty - just like a punt.

Once it hits the ground, it is live after going 10 yards - which is why the kicker needs to drive it into the ground off of the tee in order to have the kicking team successfully recover the ball after 10 yards.

The exception is if the kick goes into the end zone on it's own momentum. Once the ball touches the ground in the end zone, it is a touchback.
I recall that one from a game a few years back where the kick was not fielded, ball rolled into the end zone and was left there by the returning team as they started toward the bench - kicking team tried to recover it like an onside kick, but - touched the ground in the end zone - touchback.