Look at these dummies who use the directional kickoff.
Urban Meyer has long used a style of kickoff -- part coffin-corner, part pooch kick -- that placed the ball inside the 10 to the left of the kick formation. The intended result is for the hang time to allow the kick coverage to get downfield, swarm that area and drop the returner near his own end zone. It's been highly effective in the past, with the Buckeyes -- also due in part to some excellent punting -- routinely being among the nation's best teams in opponent average starting field position.
Nick Saban....
Just look at the film from Alabama's 45-7 victory over Tennessee. On the two occasions Scott kicked the ball deep into the end zone to produce a touchback, he directed the ball toward the center of the field. On the other six kickoffs, when the ball landed just short of the goal line or a few yards past it, he aimed toward the left corner.
In four of those instances, Tennessee elected to execute a return, and three times the Volunteers were stopped short of the 25-yard line.
Of the 33 times opponents have returned Scott's kickoffs this season, they have started their ensuing offensive possession past the 25-yard line only seven times.
"The most important thing on kickoffs is placement," (the kicker) Scott said last month. "You want to get it closer to the corner, more like on the numbers because that's how our coverage is most successful, when we place it in that area. That's what I focus on the most. Obviously they want touchbacks but placement is most important."
That's especially true if the team kicking off is attempting to coax a return.
"I'm happy with the way our guys cover, and I have a lot of confidence in it and we've had a lot of tackles inside the 20," Saban conceded. "So our drive start for kickoff coverage has been very good. And sometimes it's probably been better when we haven't kicked it in the end zone
The Patriots took an aggressive, creative approach after the NFL, in 2016, adopted a new rule moving the touchback line five yards farther forward to the 25-yard line just as the NCAA did four years earlier.
"We'll see how it all plays out, but in looking at a few other games it looks like there are a lot of teams that are doing some of the directional, corner-type kicking with good hang time," New England coach Bill Belichick, Saban's former boss, said in September 2016. "Just kind of popping the ball up in the air and making teams bring it out, which isn't surprising."
Last season, only 72 percent of the Patriots' 93 kickoffs reached the end zone -- the seventh-lowest rate in the NFL.
The year before, when the touchback line was still the 20, 90.8 percent of their kickoffs crossed the goal line.
The kicker both seasons was Stephen Gotskowski
"I think getting the ball out to the 25-yard line is obviously harder than getting it out to the 20 and those touchbacks that put it on the 20," Belichick said. "I mean I know it's only five yards and five yards is five yards, but it just seems like it's a lot easier for teams to just touchback and put the ball on the 20, whereas now there's just a little more incentive to make them return it to the 25 as opposed to just handing them the ball on the 25-yard line."
