John Baxter - Avoiding special teams chaos at all costs
The first step in fixing a problem is realizing you have a problem. Coach Baxter seems to be horrified by Michigan's special teams play and aims to fix it.
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2015/03/michigans_john_baxter_wants_to.html
Didn't see this on the board. Posted mainly because we don't hear much from Baxter or about special teams in general.
I drove one of the graduate assistants home from the Penn State game in '97. We were all giddy after the game, of course, and I asked him "Is there anything this team isn't doing well?" He said, "Well, the special teams are average at best. We have what we call our "Cobra" technique, and we aren't doing it very well."
I have no idea what said "Cobra technique" is, but apparently special teams haven't been the shining star of the program for quite some time. If anyone else can explain what he meant, I'd appreciate it.
That gif could use some re-sizing.
March 18th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
Seems clear that Baxter's approach to ST is unlike anything we've seen in Ann Arbor lately. Comparing our results to his, I'm pretty excited by the change.
It's annoyed me how so many coaches parrot that boilerplate, old-school coaching trope about "winning all three phases" but then seemingly expect special teams to coach themselves.
This staff will attend to every detail of the game because every detail matters.
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Baxter has previously used a rugby punt, which a lot of teams are going to for obvious reasons. If he gets a guy that can do, then he should run it, because it is effective.
But I also think the rugby punt should be illegal in football. I'm not saying the shield punt should be illegal, mind you, but that the rugby punt should be (I think the shield punt is both more effective and actually promotes safety because it decreases returns in general and encourages more fair catches). I think the fact that guys are coming in for blocked kicks to a moving target is dangerous for the kicker and the blockers. I think it gives an unfair advantage to a guy that runs down the sideline and then steps out at the last second and gets a late hit out of bounds. I think it results in too many low line drives that end up bouncing and forcing return players to field the punts without the option of calling for a fair catch, essentially resulting in the old XFL rules of no fair catches.
I think it's dangerous and I think it's outside the intent of the football punt. I think you should have to stay inside the tackle box to perform a punt and once you are outside the tackle box, you declare yourself as a runner and you can no longer kick the football. That's personal opinion, but I think it's backed by both the intent of the play and for safety. I also think it leads to more exciting things like punt blocks because it gives a more stationary target for block teams. It improves the game, the safety, and keeps to the intent.
But until that time, it's quite effective on special teams, and Baxter has used it. Wouldn't be surprised if we see it a few times this year even.
So...one thing I REALLY like about Baxter is that he seems focused on actually TEACHING our kickers. Most coaches who I've seen talk about kickers sort of treat them as aliens. Like, that they have their own routine and they are going to do what they are going to do -- wind them up and let them go.
Baxter seems to actually have a technique in mind. As the presser mentioned, he treats kicking like golf. There's a wrong way to swing and there's a right way to swing. He is rebuilding their fundamentals. This strikes me as rare, even though it really should not be.
If you are in a close game and at the 25 yard line, you want a kicker who will put it through the uprights. Do you really want to depend on a self-taught 19 year old to do that? I sure don't.
You see a lot of guys in basketball with a lot of different mechanics with a few basic things being the same, such as follow through and things of that nature.
Unless you are an expert and have the time to work through mechanical changes and teach those mechanical changes and have players be effective, more often than not it's only worth or smart to make a few basic changes and not overhaul things. There are a lot of good shooters with a lot of weird mechanics. To some degree, Harbaugh feels the same way to throwing mechanics for QBs.
Now, if you are an expert and you have the time to dedicate to it (the time aspect is likely why Harbaugh puts less emphasis on it for QBs), then you can go about actually teaching kickers. But if you aren't an expert or don't have the time, you're likely only doing more harm than good.
In other words, it's like after I read Golf Digest, go out to the driving range, and try to implement some of the things I just read. I suck. I mean, I sucked before, but at least before I sucked somewhat consistently. But unless I'm out there training every day on my swing, getting good feedback on my swing, really focusing on making those changes, it's difficult to fine-tune a golf swing and have it be effective.
Entirely agree with all of that. But it seems like Baxter has an idea of what he is doing, so I'm excited to see the impact.
And while it probably wouldn't make sense at the college level unless you have somebody who knows what they are doing, I don't see an excuse for it at the NFL level. Every team should have a kicking coach. You have all the time in the world and all the money in the world.
And I think a lot of those kickers go to their own kicking coaches, particularly in the offseason. By that point, most of these kickers are quite effective, and honestly, if you're not, a good NFL kicker (not a great one, but a good one) is a dime a dozen. Cut a guy and sign the next one up.
It's the coaching number restriction at the college level that makes it a bit more difficult.
FWIW, I do agree with you that it is nice to have a guy that actually understands the kicking game on the staff. My feeling is that the upside isn't huge, but where it really helps is preventing guys from struggling. The peaks should be about the same, but the valleys should be mitigated greatly because the kicker can actually talk to someone that knows what's going on and can help to make them more consistent because of specific things.
March 18th, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^
March 18th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^
Kicking is a lot more like a golf swing - the key is consistency, and, unless something has gone very wrong, you should do it at the same tempo, with the same path, etc. Mechanics is everything!
It seems like Baxter is saying that you can't just tack on a fix to a bad foundation (likely why you fail in your "read Golf Digest" scenario), you need to start from the bottom and make everything right. There may not be "one right swing", but you can definitely perfect your own from the ground up. And it's hard to do when you're focusing on results (hence drills and nets). Never try to fix your swing during a game!
It just seems strange to me that there are many coaches who will literally take yardsticks and measure their OL's stance and steps to the nearest inch, but will then look at a kicker and say, eh, whatever works for you kid. An OL an inch off costs you a yard - a kicker an inch off costs you 3 points. (And the likelihood of an OL being, or needing to be, inch perfect in a dynamic game is much lower, for the same reason you say QB mechanics aren't quite as critical).
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I have a small amount of anecdotal evidence that supports your thougts. I tried out as a walk on kicker for RR (was actually called back, but then we got hit with "stretchgate" and I was no longer a priority). I definetly got the sense that kickers were viewed as very ancilliary to the rest of the team. I believe the person introduced to me as the "special teams" coach was also an assistant S&C cordinator, so he really did not have any paticular insight into coaching kicking. I went in assuming they would look at certain parts of my tecnique (were my steps right length, did I plant right, did I lean back too much, etc), but the only thing they did was measure the time of my approach, which I thought was less important because thats the one thing thrown off by having to be with a brand new snapper and holder. I definetly felt like there was a lack of teaching going on. I do recognize I can't make a judgement on what was going on in real practices, but thats the sense I left with.
6'3" 244 lbs kick returner? Yes please.
March 18th, 2015 at 10:37 AM ^
March 18th, 2015 at 10:12 AM ^
As a high school teacher I really appreciate this man's approach to coaching. I often feel like a coach to my students. You give them a problem and you break it down to the fundamentals for them to practice. You drill the techniques you teach them, and then when its game day, you see how well they do.
After reading this all I can say is
ITS HAPPENING
March 18th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
March 18th, 2015 at 10:45 AM ^
March 18th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
March 18th, 2015 at 11:18 AM ^
There's nothing in the interview with Baxter that indicates he was "horrified."
Regardless, I don't there's a more important hire that Harbaugh's made than Baxter.
March 18th, 2015 at 11:36 AM ^
I'm thinking he didn't flat-out say our special teams play was 'horrible' because it's unprofessional to publically slam other people in your profession - especially the ones you just replaced. That said, Baxter's forgotten more about special teams play than any of us will ever learn so I'm sure he's well aware of all the bad habits and flaws that need to be fixed beyond counting to eleven.
As an aside, a lot of you have certainly remarked on the burgeoning size of our coaching staff. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to do this. Obviously football isn't theoretical chemistry or Chinese literature but generally a low student-to-teacher ratio is one of the more reliable predictors of how effective a class is - why wouldn't this be true for coaching football, especially at the college level?
March 18th, 2015 at 12:18 PM ^
This is exciting. For a long, long time, it seems like we've never been good in all phases of special teams, and often downright bad in some of them. If we could become above-average in all areas, that alone could pay major dividends.
This means the end of 10 people on the field.
. . . have we heard that Special teams are one-third of the game? Having a dedicated coach for them makes so much sense that not having one seems half-hearted. Having the best one is just the Harbaugh way.