West Virginia checking off special teams goals in camp
West Virginia special teams coordinator Pat Kirkland entered fall camp with some clear goals.
One of those was to simply put a lot of young players that don’t have game experience into situations that they haven’t been in to this point in their careers.
Unlike offense or defense where there is a rhythm and some certainty to what you’re doing, special teams often presents situations that haven’t been emphasized.
That’s what practices are for and while simulating special teams is difficult to accomplish given the risk of going live you try to do that in controlled environments. But you try to present those situations randomly in order to simulate the fact that often there isn’t much of a warning when those units take the field.
“We’ll do some things with some half line stuff on punt and punt block and maybe just a little bit of go to thud or some stuff on kickoff and kickoff return to try to get them as close to game-like situations as we can,” Kirkland said. “You’ve got to do it because they need to be put in that environment.”
Kirkland believes that his time spent as a head coach at Charleston as helped to prepare him for his role as a special teams coordinator because of his ability to meet with different groups with different skill sets.
Given all of the various responsibilities on special teams, finding those players that can handle what is asked of them is critical in order to make the units work efficiently.
During fall camp, Kirland has a list of specific situations that he wants to cover with his units both of the walkthrough and live variety. The goal is to make sure players understand that if a certain situation occurs, that players know how to handle it.
“You’ve got to put yourself in a position to be able to make good decisions. And our job as coaches is to help them with those decisions when they come up in a game,” Kirkland said.
Special teams is roughly 18 to 22-percent of the snaps during a game and head coach Rich Rodriguez tries to reflect that in the amount of time dedicated to that in practice settings.
“There is a big emphasis put on the special teams,” Kirkland said.
The coaching staff has to find the players that put you in the best position to succeed on special teams but also the balance is trying to manage their reps. That’s why finding those players that are not necessarily playing a lot on the other units but excel on special teams is critical.
“We’re blessed to have some guys that take a lot of pride and execute at a high level on those teams. So that plays a really big part in it,” Kirkland said.
But even so, there is always some anxiety when it comes to special teams given the challenges of simulating it but the preparation is the best way to combat that.
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