The Situation

You’re down after just scoring, 17-14, with a minute to go in the first half. As you line up to kickoff, the coach signals in for an onside kick. Rolling the dice, you feel that if you recover the kick, your three time outs will pay dividends as you try to at least gain some yardage and kick a field goal before the first half ends. It would be great to go into the locker room tied (or ahead) since at one time you trailed, 17-0. What formation would you use for the onside kick and what responsibilities would each player have? How would you fake the long kick for the short one? Joe Schotland, Assistant Coach, Westwood HS (MA). AFM subscriber since 2006. We’d go for the onsides and our onsides kickoff starts off by looking just like our regular deep kickoff. Our regular kickoff begins without a huddle (M.O.F.) but with two lines, each with five players, who are facing the kicker. He is