When I was still coaching HS ball, I was originally a DL coach. My HC named me STs coordinator and I bought in 110%. I borrowed from other schemes to formulate my own for returns, and my 1st year we had 6 KOs taken the distance before opponents started pooch kicking to us, resulting in avg starting field position at around the 40.
Now, I'd never kicked a football in my life, but I studied the mechanics. I did coach soccer for a bit, and gleaned a bit of the kicking aspect of that to produce decent results in our kicking product on the football field. That, coupled with encouraging my kickers to go to every kicking camp they could. And what they learned there, I didn't mess with.
We were a 3A school, where most teams in that class go for 2 because they just don't have reliable kickers so the odds of making a 2 over a PAT were better. Our case was different because our kicker was actually fairly consistent from 30 yards and in. So we went for 1 unless situational strategy required otherwise.
All that to say this: whatever the highly-rated kickers we've signed in the past learned during their HS careers just didn't seem to translate once they got here. I love Bobby Williams to death. He was a great coordinator when it came to the return and coverage aspects of STs. But maybe he just didn't invest enough in learning enough about kicking as a non-kicker in an effort to not mess up what all these top 5 kickers we'd signed had learned. They just seemed to struggle once they got here.
Not sure exactly. I'd learned just enough as a non-kicker myself to not mess up my kickers.
One thing is for certain though. Having a dedicated STs Coordinator, now with no other job, that's a former kicker himself will pay much more dividends in our kicking game than I think we even realize.
