How Alabama Can Fix Its Kickoff Coverage

In Nick Saban's first year at Alabama, the Tide rated tops among kickoff coverage in the SEC.  Last year they finished at the end of the pack.  Punt coverage was about that bad too.

Why?  Did Bobby Williams suddenly forget how to coach?  Was our depth so bad that we had no athletes left for special teams?

The answer to all that is no.  Except for Prince Hall, who is now removed from the team, there was little experience on the coverage team.  Saban opted to get the rookies feet wet in a hurry and threw them to the sharks before they were ready.

Combine this with a kicker with a leg incapable of putting it out of the end-zone and you simply have a recipe for disaster.  Not that the coverage unit was a disaster, but it did put Alabama on it's heels time and again by allowing opponents great field position.

"A good kick or punt return can do more than just give a team good field position."  Coach Williams told me this spring. "It gives them a mental boost and gets that adrenaline pumping.  We can't afford to give these kinds of momentum builders."

Williams told me that I wasn't the only one asking these questions and no one was more concerned than him to finding the answers.  "Well except for Nick Saban." he said smiling.

During the past year, they tried increasing the hang time to give the team time to get down and make a play before the recieving team could advance it, but that didn't work.

So they took to kicking to one side to cut down the amount of field they had to cover and unfortunately, that didn't work well either.

Alabama coaches could not comment on kickers or punters they are looking at or have commitments for, but I can tell you that none were signed for the 2009 class. 

Therefore this year, we'll have the same kickers and punters, but the coverage unit will change for the better.  First of all, they'll be a lot more experience in the unit, second of all players will be tweaked to get the best players in the best positions.

The two outside men are generally referred to as gunners.  It is their responsibility to streak down the sidelines as fast as possible and head directly for the kick returner.  These players are usually reserve receivers or defensive backs and are among the fastest players on the field.

In fact, at Alabama they like to play the 10 coverage men with the fastest linebackers, defensive backs and receivers they have.  Size is not as important to Williams as speed.

This is because they feel most returners can be stopped by players like that because the returners are usually the same kinds of players themselves or maybe running backs.  No team is going to going to have a big fullback returning kicks or punts.

This year Alabama will place a lot of emphasis on the number four men, next the gunners, next closest to the sidelines.  These are the men who are responsible for containment of the sidelines should the gunner miss or run past the returner.

Gunners or the number five men on each side, make the highlight reels, but the number four men make sure nobody takes it up the sideline for a score.

According to coaches I talked to, the number four men are an area of focus for this coming season.

The two inside men closest to the center of the field are the wedge busters.  This is a job usually given to an aggressive rookie linebacker who like to hit, but doesn't have the nuances yet to catch a wily returner.  His job is to "take men out" or do away with the blockers so the three and four men have an unimpeded route to the returner.

Alabama is lucky to have some guys who love to run down the field and hit.  Williams is going to work this summer to find the best combination to bring the Tide's coverage back to the top.

The job will get easier for kickoff teams next year, when the Tide is set to reel in Southlake, Texas' Cade Foster.  62 percent of Fosters kicks were nonreturnable this past season in high school.

However, in talking to a Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart this week about kickers in general, he reminded me that there are lots of high school kids who can kick it out of the end zone.  That's because of two reasons.

First of all, they kick off from the 40 and colleges kick off from the 30.  This is because in 2006 the NCAA felt it would be more exciting for kickoffs to mean something, and that touch backs were boring, so starting in 2007 they moved the ball back to the 30.

Secondly, the kicking tee they use in high school is higher.  This allows the kicker to get under it more and get more early height on the ball.  College tees are closer to the ground and ask any kicker what a difference that makes.

Still, should Foster follow through with his commitment, he will not only help the Tide with kickoffs as early as the 2010 season, but will also help with coverage as he is a very decent starting linebacker as well.

From the tape I've seen of him, I can tell you he will be one kicker a returner won't want to have to see through his face mask coming at him.

But that's all next year.  This year Alabama has a much deeper bench to draw from for the coverage unit than last year.  Williams is hoping that this increased talent along with getting the right guys in the right slots brings about better results.

For the Tide, I hope it works out.  There's no place to go but up when you're at the bottom of the SEC in kickoff coverage.