Your field goal steps are choreography: tight, exact, repeatable. Your kickoff steps are a runway — a build to top speed timed to hit a plant spot while a ball sits on a tee. Same legs, completely different geometry. Kickers who treat kickoff steps like field goal steps with more yardage end up slow to the plant, off-line at contact, or reaching for a ball they were never positioned to hit clean. Let’s build the runway properly.
First, Understand What Kickoff Steps Have to Do
On a field goal, your approach solves a timing problem. On a kickoff, it solves a speed problem. You’re trying to arrive at the ball with maximum controllable speed and your hips already driving through the strike. That changes the geometry: kickoff approaches are longer, they’re angled, and they accelerate all the way through, whereas a field goal approach is compact and rhythmic by design.
The payoff for getting it right is real. A well-built kickoff approach turns your run into your power source, so your leg isn’t doing all the work alone. A sloppy one leaks speed at the worst moment — the last two steps — which is exactly when the club needs it.
Finding Your Step Count
There’s no magic number, but there’s a reliable process. Most kickers land between five and eight steps, and the count that works for you depends on your speed, your stride, and how fast you can get your plant down from a dead start. Here’s how to find yours:
- Start at a walk-through pace. Mark a spot where you plant, then walk backward until you’ve hit a rhythm you could accelerate from — usually six to eight yards for a younger kicker, more for a college-level leg.
- Count both directions. Walk back to the tee, then jog the approach naturally. Count your steps out loud. Whatever feels choppy needs adjusting, not memorizing.
- Check the plant spot. Your plant foot should land even with the ball, roughly a ball-length toward the target side of it. If you’re landing behind or ahead of the ball, adjust your start mark, not your last step.
- Repeat it ten times, then time it. The count that feels smooth ten times in a row is your count. If you can’t repeat it ten times, it isn’t yours yet.
One caution as you build this: more steps only help if you can use them. A five-step approach with real acceleration beats an eight-step approach that never gets going. Distance comes from contact quality first — the approach exists to feed it, not to replace it. If distance is your goal, that progression lives in my guide on how to kick off farther with more distance and hang time.
The Approach Angle
Most kickers set up at an angle to the ball — commonly somewhere around a 30 to 45 degree line off the target — so the final steps can drive straight through the ball toward the target. A straight-on approach forces your hips to do all the rotating at the plant, which is where consistency dies. The angled approach lets your body curve into the strike, the same way a soccer striker approaches a ball before a shot.
Your angle also sets up your plant placement. Because you’re arriving at an angle, the plant foot goes slightly to the side of the ball, and your swing line runs through the ball toward your aim point. If you change the angle, you change the geometry of every step after it — so when something feels off, check the angle first. It’s the upstream variable that fixes everything downstream.
I cover this in depth in kickoff approach angle: how to find your line, which pairs with this post — one handles the line, this one handles the steps.
Timing the Approach With the Tee
Here’s the piece that separates clean kickoffs from rushed ones: your final two steps must be your fastest, and they must land on rhythm — not on the count. What does that mean? Your step count has a tempo. If your first four steps are slow and your last two are explosive, the ball gets maximum leg speed at contact. If every step is the same speed, you’re arriving with a cruise, not a strike.
Practice it this way. Kick five balls at seventy percent, focusing only on the acceleration through steps five and six. Feel the last two steps eat ground. Then add power gradually while keeping that same late burst. Kickers who chase speed by sprinting from step one lose their plant timing and start smothering the ball. Build the burst at the end, and your plant stays stable.
Adjusting In-Game Without Losing Your Count
Game conditions move your runway. Wind in your face, a wet field, a low sun, a hash-mark start — each one nudges your approach. The rule: adjust your start mark, never your step count. Slide back two steps for a wind-heavy day. Shift your line a foot for a crosswind. But keep the count and the tempo, because those are the parts your body has automated. Changing counts mid-season is a training decision. Changing marks mid-game is a strategy decision. Confusing the two is how good kickers have bad Saturdays.
How Kickoff Steps Differ From Field Goal Steps
It’s worth stating plainly, because kickers ask me this constantly: the skills overlap, but the jobs don’t. Field goals want a compact approach and a vertical-ish strike. Kickoffs want a long approach, a lower strike through the ball’s equator, and follow-through that finishes tall. If you try to hit a kickoff with your field goal swing, you’ll get height and lose distance. If you try to hit a field goal with your kickoff approach, you’ll be off-balance and late on the hold. My post on why kickoff and field goal technique are different motions breaks that down fully.
The whole skill set starts from one thing, though: your own numbers. If you’ve never measured your steps, start with my post on finding your kickoff steps, mark your start point with a tee, and build from there.
Once your runway exists, the fun part starts: turning approach speed into distance. That’s a mechanics project, and I put the full system in my book, The Art of Kicking — grab it on Gumroad and use code KOE for ten percent off. Build the runway right, and the ball flight takes care of itself.
