Mailbag question: Why no full-time special teams coach?

Mailbag question: Why no full-time special teams coach?

GBMW,

Is there a reason why we do not have a full-time special teams coach?

Special teams play has really killed us the past two years and having the assistant coaches split up the duties seems almost like they do not even care about it.

Who is responsible for the special teams if you guys know?

I really thought the special teams would improve when Coach Rod got here, but in fact they seem to have gotten worse and I never thought I would have said that.

If it were not for guys like C. Woodson, D. Howard, and S. Breaston, I would not even know that a Michigan team could have good special teams.

Linda T.

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Thanks for the question.

Michigan does not have a special teams coach because Coach Rod uses a by-committee approach.

Each assistant coach is responsible for a different phase of the special teams preparation, assignments, and executions.

As an example, we believe Coach Tall has the assignment of field goal and extra point squads.

This type of approach is not unusual at the major college level.

Many programs, including Ohio State for instance, use a by-committee approach.

The reason for using this approach is simple, NCAA rules allow only so many fulltime assistant coaches, so if you employ a special teams coach this necessitates that another important area of game preparation is regulated to being coached by a grad assistant.

For example, under the Coach Carr regime, Coach Malone or Coach DeBord ran special teams, so Michigan used a grad assistant as the primary linebackers’ coach.

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Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine