Northern Illinois' Ranger Unit

Northern Illinois’ Ranger Unit: Pride and Performance

Mike Priefer Defensive Tackles Coach Northern Illinois DeKalb, ill.

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t is indeed an honor to be asked by the AFCA to submit an article for the Summer Manual. On behalf of the Northern Illinois’ coaching staff and players, especially the Ranger Unit, I want to thank the AFCA for the opportunity to share our punt block/return thoughts with you. I have been very fortunate to have been around, and coached with, many outstanding football coaches and have received numerous ideas and teaching points that have proved to be invaluable. Many thanks to all of them. A special thanks to Joe Novak, our head coach, and to the coaches that assist me with our Ranger Unit – Scott Shafer, Pat Narduzzi, Sid McNairy, Greg Bower, and Kurt Johansen. Our “Ranger Unit” is so named because we want our punt block/return team to model itself after of the “esprit de corps” that the U.S. Army Rangers represent and how they are always willing to do their part for the good of the cause. To be successful in any arena you have to have the right kind of attitude and the members of our Ranger Unit have bought into this “Ranger” attitude and take a great deal of pride in being called “Rangers.” We were very fortunate in the fact that we had outstanding players on this team that accomplished a great deal during the 2000 season. We blocked four punts, finished first in the MidAmerican Conference and sixth in the country in punt return average (16.2 yds./return), and had a special young man, Justin McCareins, who finished first in the MAC and third in the country in punt return average (19.1 yds./return). The statistic that I feel is just as important as any with this team is the opponent’s net punt average. Our opponents netted only 25.97 yds./punt versus our Ranger Unit this past fall which put our excellent offense in good field position many times throughout the year. As with most staffs, we feel that the most important play in football is the punt. Because of this philosophy the punt block/return team must be a potent weapon if we are to attack an opponent’s most important play. If we are to possess an “attack mentality” we must attempt to put as much pressure on the punt team as possible in order to accomplish our number one goal – Block or force a bad kick on every opportunity. We are mainly a block team but because of the pressure we can put on a punt protection unit, we have the opportunity for some big returns. We need

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to have confidence, give second effort and play intelligent, mistake-free football in order to win the field position battle. Our attitude is that our Ranger Unit can, and will, affect the outcome of every game. If we can win the field position battle we will be doing our part for the good of the cause, which will help Northern Illinois win the game. Some coaches may feel, because of time constraints, that a punt rush team can only be one-dimensional – that is, it can either be a punt block team or a punt return team, but not both. We feel, however, that our Ranger Unit can be a threat as a block team as well as have the ability to set up a successful return. Being a multi-dimensional punt block/return team takes some extra time. We are fortunate to have a head coach that supports our “attack mentality” philosophy and gives us the time to properly study an opponent, effectively install the blocks and returns on the practice field each week, and have the meeting time necessary to correct mistakes and make coaching points that are necessary to allow us to implement a gameplan and give it a chance to be successful. I am convinced that any special teams unit must have the support of the head coach and the rest of the staff if it is truly going to be “special.” As with any aspect of the game of football you have to start with some base rules. We start the members of this unit out in a base alignment and then make changes based on the block or return called from here. Here is our base alignment:

Diagram 1: Base Alignment

Because our corners play so much press coverage in our base defense, it was a natural for them to continue to do so with our punt rush team. Their base rule is that they have the No. 1 receiver on their side of the ball and will travel with them, if both gunners are on the same side. No. 2 and No. 9 are at least a yard outside the slot to their side, No. 3 and No. 8 are head up to slightly outside the slot, No. 4 and No. 7 are head up to slightly outside the tackle, and No. 5 and No. 6 are head up to slightly outside the guard. We like to stretch an oppo-

nent’s punt team so we align our players wide in order to create seams in our opponent’s protection. Off this base look, a concept that has helped us achieve success is our ability to move around pre-snap in order to create confusion for the opposing punt team. Each week we will have at least two men assigned as “bouncers” and their job is to do anything they can to distort the picture that the protection team is seeing. If a punt rush team lines up and stays in a certain position while a punt team makes its protection calls, we are making it easier on them mentally and this allows them to protect with more confidence. We will utilize our bouncers on both our blocks and our returns so our opponent cannot figure out the difference. Our next goal for our Ranger Unit concerns fakes. Obviously we work hard to stop any fake attempt and because of what we do, we can discourage an opponent from wanting to have a fake in their gameplan. Along with having bouncers we normally will have both slots, the personal protector, and the gunners covered man to man within our punt block scheme and our punt return scheme. There are certain occasions where we might bring eight on a block and leave some people uncovered but for the most part our philosophy is to deny the fake as much as possible. This past season only one fake was attempted against us and it was unsuccessful. Like most punt block teams we like to come off the punter’s kicking foot side. Since we normally see right-footed punters our base block is from our left. We will name our blocks using some type of military term to stay in line with our Ranger philosophy, which our players seem to enjoy. For the purposes of this article I will call our base block “Block Left” which is shown in Diagram 2.

Diagram 2: Block Left

As stated previously, we will utilize at least two bouncers who will attempt to confuse the protection team pre-snap. One week the bouncers may be No. 5 and No. 6

and the next week they may be No. 4 and No. 8. Regardless of the pre-snap movement, the alignments shown in Diagram 2 are where our people must be when the ball moves. By stretching the punt team with our alignments we will attempt to attack the seams we hope to create. There are two ways to attack these seams. One way to is to immediately rip across a man’s face to the inside. For example, our No. 4 position would rip across the tackle’s face and back up the field to the block point as soon as the ball is snapped. Another way is to work up the field two steps and then rip underneath the man to the inside. No. 4 would work upfield, attacking the tackle’s outside shoulder to get him committed outside, then rip across his face as tight and as low as possible. By using this technique we try to get the guard to forget about us long enough to get by him in his B gap (versus a zone scheme). By studying our opponent’s personnel and scheme, we coach our players on what technique would work best that week. As shown in the diagram, we will have the gunners and slots covered man to man with this block. Due to the fact we spend a great deal of time on the different block schemes we have in our package, we keep our return game quite simple. Although we have a few wrinkles each week, our base return is a middle return. Diagram 3 is an example of this.

Diagram 3: Middle Return

Again, we have bouncers to distort the pre-snap picture. No. 2 and No. 9 can also move around before the ball is snapped but they must get to their proper alignment so they execute our double bump technique with No. 1 and No. 10. The gunners are normally the toughest people to block so we will attempt to neutralize their coverage by using two double teams. We can slow down the rest of the coverage by making this return initially look like a block. And when the ball is snapped our people will come off the ball as hard as they would if they were going to block a punt. We like to assign one man each week to ensure the

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punt, which is what No. 5 is doing in the diagram. Because this is a middle return, No. 3, No. 4, No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8 all attack the inside number of their man and work him to the outside. As they work down the field they fight to keep inside leverage on their man in order to open up the middle for our returner. We tell our return man that all we need is the catch but that when the ball is secure we “get north” or straight back up the field. Because we do not block everybody we tell the returner that he must make at least one man miss. This has been a basic overview of Northern Illinois’ Ranger Unit. We hope that you can take a few coaching points with you that can help your program for the upcoming season. If you have any questions or any ideas that may be able to help us improve on what we do, please do not hesitate to contact me at the NIU Football Office, (815) 753-8297. I will close by sharing with you part of the U.S. Army Ranger creed that epitomizes what our punt block/return team is all about: “Never shall I fail my comrades. I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong, and morally straight and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be. One hundred percent and then some.” Thank you to the A F C Af o r this outstanding opportunity. Good luck in 2001.

Double-Dipping Affects July to July Contract Recommendation Coaches who are fortunate enough to have July to July contracts, or the equivalent, as recommended by the AFCA, should not abuse the privilege when moving from one job to another by accepting salaries from two institutions during the transition. Be ethically responsible to your profession by notifying your former institution’s athletic director immediately when you are hired by another institution. Don’t jeopardize the contracts of many of your fellow coaches by being selfish.