Disclosure: some links below are affiliate links — if you buy through them I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which helps keep Kickers of Earth running. I only recommend gear I would hand a teammate.
Week 1 does not care whether you were ready. It arrives anyway, and it tends to expose exactly the things you skipped in August. So here is the list I want you to work through before your first game — twenty items, grouped by what they protect. Print it, work it in order, and finish it a full week before kickoff so you are not buying cleats on Thursday night.
Gear and Equipment
- Check every football you own. Pressure, seams, grip. Retire the ones with soft spots now, not mid-season.
- Confirm your tee situation. Know which tee your level and league uses this season, and confirm the league’s rules on it — the progression is laid out in the field goal tee guide.
- Inspect your kicking cleats. Worn studs on a plant foot are a season-ending slip waiting for a dewy September night. If yours are done, the breakdown in the kicking cleats guide will save you an afternoon of guessing.
- Break in a backup pair of shoes. Blistered feet in week two from new cleats is a fully preventable tragedy.
- Pack the bag properly. Tee, towel, spare laces, resistance band, ball pump, tape, socks. If it is not in the bag on game day, it does not exist.
- Have the right practice balls for your level — leather or composite, matched to what you will actually kick in games. If you need to top up, search footballs for kicking on Amazon and pick one rated for your age group.
| Product | Why it matters | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Field goal tee | The single most-used piece of specialist equipment you own | Field goal tees on Amazon |
| Kicking cleats | Plant stability decides contact before your swing does anything | Kicking cleats on Amazon |
| Practice footballs | Consistent balls make consistent charts; mixed balls make noise | Footballs on Amazon |
Body and Conditioning
- Set your weekly kick count. Write the number down before the season, not after your first sore week. What your kick count should be explains how to size it by phase.
- Ramp your volume gradually. Two weeks of easy volume before full-intensity operation days. Hamstring and hip strains love kickers who sprint out of the gate.
- Book your strength work. Two lifting days that survive a game week, hips and posterior chain first.
- Fix the mobility you have been ignoring. Ten minutes daily, hips and hip flexors. It is the cheapest performance upgrade in this sport.
- Build the warmup you will actually use on game day, and rehearse it in practice, not in the parking lot. The full sequence lives in the kicker’s warm-up routine.
Operation and Technique
- Find your snapper and holder, and get real reps. Ten live operations beat fifty solo swings. Lock the timing now, before the season makes it urgent.
- Recheck your plant spot and steps at full tempo. Off-season adjustments decay when nobody is watching them.
- Chart your baseline. Distance, accuracy by hash, contact quality. You cannot fix what you have not measured, and Week 1 is a terrible time to start measuring.
- Prepare one wind and one bad-weather adjustment. Pick them now, practice them once, so the first storm of the season is a variation rather than a crisis.
Film, Numbers and Plan
- Set up your film system. A phone tripod behind and to the side of your target line, charged, in the bag. Every rep this season should be on video.
- Write your season goal in one sentence. Not “get better.” Something you can chart: a make percentage in a window, a consistent operation time, a hang time range.
- Decide your in-season schedule now — which days you kick, which days you lift, which day you rest. A plan made in August survives October; a plan improvised in October does not.
People and Conversations
- Talk to your special teams coordinator. Ask what your role is, what the depth chart looks like, and what they want from you in week one. Ambiguity is heavier than any assignment.
- Confirm your sideline setup. Who holds your towel, where your water is, what your between-series routine is, and who is allowed to talk to you after a miss. Set those boundaries before the first Friday night makes them relevant.
How to Use This List Without Overdoing It
Work it in two passes. Gear and logistics in the first week of August, body and operation in the second. Do not sprint through all twenty in one day — that is not preparation, that is anxiety with a spreadsheet. The point of a checklist is that by the time Week 1 arrives, your attention is free for the football.
Track it honestly, too. Write the date you finished each item, and be suspicious of the items that stay unfinished for two weeks — that is usually not a scheduling problem, it is an avoidance problem, and it is almost always the film setup, the conversation with the coordinator, or the baseline chart. Those three are the least fun and the most predictive of your season. Everything on this list is either a purchase, a session, or a sentence spoken out loud to another human being; none of it is hard, and all of it is easier in August than in October.
One more thing worth saying: a checklist keeps you from forgetting things, but it does not decide what matters. If you want the thinking behind all of this — how technique, routine and mindset connect into one system you can run all season — that is what I built The Art of Kicking for. Use code KOE for 10% off, and treat the ebook as the why behind this list of whats.
Then go get the twenty items handled. September rewards the kickers who did their boring work early, every single time.
