Squib Kicks and Onside Kicks: The Situational Kickoff Toolkit

Your team is up three with ninety seconds left and the other side is out of timeouts. The call that comes in is not “kick it deep.” It is one of the two kicks most kickers practice the least: the squib or the onside. These are the situational tools of the position, and they are worth knowing cold — because when the situation arrives, there is no time to learn.

Let’s build the toolkit properly: when each kick makes sense, how each one is actually executed, and how to rep them legally.

The Squib: Trading Explosion for Chaos

A squib kick bounces. You strike the ball low and hard off the tee so it skids along the grass, bounces unpredictably, and forces the return team to make a play on a ball that refuses to sit still. No clean catch. No running start. Just a loose ball and a scrum.

When a squib makes sense:

• Late half with a lead. The math is about preventing a big return, not earning a touchback.
• You are facing an elite returner. If their returner beats you deep when you kick clean, chaos is your friend.
• Wet or windy conditions. A skidding ball is even harder to handle when the ground is slick — for both sides, but especially for them.
• Your coverage is strong and aggressive. A squib needs ten tacklers arriving on time to be worth it.

The execution detail matters more than power. A good squib is a controlled strike into the ground — not a mishit. You want the ball to bounce in the space between the returner and his upback, where nobody owns the catch. That takes a deliberate, shortened approach and an intentional strike, not a panicked one.

The risk is real and worth saying plainly: a squib that gets fielded cleanly by the other team’s fastest player is worse than a touchback. Squibbing is a percentage play, not a guarantee, and you should know your coverage unit’s speed before you ever decide to bounce one.

The Onside Kick: A Skill, Not a Gamble

Everybody remembers watching onside kicks. Very few kickers have ever drilled one properly. That gap is the reason most onside attempts look desperate instead of deliberate.

The core mechanics: you are striking the ball off-center and on its top half with an angled foot, creating sidespin so it pops up and bounces hard in the direction of your coverage. The goal is to get it over the ten-yard line with a chance for your team to recover it first — high enough to clear the defenders’ reach, low enough to hit grass quickly and bounce into traffic.

Three mechanics decide whether an onside kick actually works:

1. Angle of approach. You approach from an angle across the ball, not straight at it — that angle is what lets your foot sweep across the ball’s face instead of driving through it.
2. Contact point. Up and on the side of the ball, off your instep or the outside of the foot depending on which direction you want the spin. This is the difference between a ball that skips into traffic and one that pops straight up to a waiting defender.
3. Height over distance. An onside kick that travels 12 yards is better than one that travels 13 — if the extra yard means a bigger bounce that sails past your recovery crew.

If you have never drilled the technique, the deep dive lives in onside kick technique: how to actually execute it — it is the detail work behind everything above.

The Rules You Must Know Before You Try

Both of these kicks live inside a rules box, and the box differs by level. The non-negotiables:

• The ten-yard rule. The kicking team cannot touch the ball until it has traveled ten yards (or until the receiving team touches it). An onside kicked too softly that dies at eight yards belongs to the other team at that spot.
• Blocking restrictions. Kicking-team players have restrictions on blocking before the ball is kicked and, in some codes, until it has traveled ten yards. Know your level’s version.
• Recovery rules. Once the ball has gone ten yards or been touched by the receiving team, it is live for anyone. That is the entire game.
• Tee legality. Kickoff tee use depends on your level — check your rulebook, because it changes how the ball sits and how you strike it.

Practicing them legally is straightforward: full operation, live coverage, real consequences — inside your league’s rules. What you should never do is skip the practice because the play is “rare.” Rare plays do not wait for you to be ready.

Drills That Actually Build These Kicks

Both kicks are precision work disguised as desperation. Train them that way:

• Towel targets. Lay a towel where you want the squib to bounce. Ten reps, chart the ones that miss the towel, adjust your contact point until eight of ten hit.
• Height gate. For onsides, set a barrier or use your imagination with a cone line: the ball must clear the “defender line” and bounce before a second line. That constraint teaches the exact strike you need.
• Left and right versions. Most kickers only practice one onside direction. Learn both — the situation decides the side, not your comfort.
• Full-speed operation. Whatever you drill slowly, finish with game-speed reps. A squib you have only hit from a relaxed warmup is not a skill yet.

Situational kicks reward kickers who keep a chart. Distance, bounce direction, recovery result. After a month of that, you will know your own reliability — and so will your coach, which is how you end up being the kicker who gets the call.

When the Answer Is Neither

One more honest note: sometimes the right situational kick is still the deep one. If your coverage has been dominating all night, kicking it deep and letting your guys tackle is not a failure of imagination. Squibs and onsides are tools for specific situations — leading late, protecting a lead, needing a possession — not a substitute for a good normal kick.

Learn the placement logic that tells you which tool fits, and you will be ready for all of it. My guide on how to read a defense on kickoffs is the natural companion here, and how to find your kickoff steps keeps your base swing honest underneath everything.

These are also the kicks that reward having a coach’s eye on them — contact points and angles are much easier to fix from the side of a film review than from inside your own head. If you want eyes on your situational kicks, book a session here and we will break down the film together.