‘Team within a Team’: Kickoff teams will get it all going Friday night

Kickoff. A football game — and the 2024 season — won’t start without it.

And it is glorious. Listen to the crowd.

“That’s like the best part, almost. The crowd gets going and you’re starting off the game like that,” said Prospect senior Carter Cremascoli, a soccer convert whom national kicking specialist Chris Sailer ranks five stars, among the country‘s best place-kickers.

“I like the away games even more, the opposing crowd — and then you put it deep in the end zone, that’s satisfying to me,” Cremascoli said during the Knights’ Tuesday practice.

Prospect head coach Dan DeBoeuf would be satisfied if Cremascoli, or his No. 2 kicker, junior David Martin, forced a touchback every time.

“To make the opposing team drive the whole field every time we score is a big deal,” DeBoeuf said.

But there is more to kickoff team. Tim Beishir, Prospect’s special teams coordinator in the seven years DeBoeuf has been coach, said “Impact Special Teams” are designed to contribute to overall team strategy, tailored to fit each opponent.

Beishir said that in Prospect’s 11 games last season, out of 58 kickoffs, 46 were deep kicks. Of those, 34 went for touchbacks, 74%.

Kickoffs that didn’t go deep were mainly directional “pooch” kicks popped into space to surprise upfield returners or blockers. Sometimes, Cremascoli said, the pooch is delivered — left, right or middle — to affect future returns by having opponents anticipate a shorter kickoff.

Other times he’s asked to kick the ball just shy of the end zone so Prospect can tackle the ball carrier deep in his own territory.

“We have our signals almost like you would call a normal play,” Cremascoli said. “He’ll (Beishir) call it out, I’ll look at (the field) and then I’ll decide by how their formation’s looking where exactly I’m trying to put the ball.”

“For all the special teams, field position’s really important,” said senior co-captain J.T. Zei, for three seasons a mainstay of Prospect special teams and also its long snapper.

“A lot of teams ignore that, so being able to take advantage of that and use that as a weapon is really important for us,” Zei said.

Cremascoli recalled the Knights recovering three surprise onside kicks in 2023, plus Griffin Limbers’ recovery of a last-gasp onside kick that helped Prospect beat New Trier 24-20.

“Onside kicks are a really big part of the game, at least for the high school level now — being able to kick the ball to the side and able to return the ball to yourself so you can get another chance to score another touchdown and save your guys’ game,” Martin said.

To further confuse opposing kickoff return units, who often use numbering systems for blockers to handle specific players, Beishir will have his players move and shift positions during the kickoff.

“We want to leverage our speed and the huge amount of space the kickoff return blockers have to contend with, in order to defeat their blocks and make the tackle,” Beishir said.

He also keeps his own players on their toes. Practicing kickoffs on Tuesday, Beishir yelled as if a player on the unit had a broken helmet, spurring a teammate to sprint from the sideline to take his place. Then, he counseled a player who ran offside on a deep Cremascoli kick.

There are multiple reasons why Prospect has reached the playoffs in every non-COVID season under DeBoeuf. Beishir’s special teams, including kickoff, are one.

“We have one of the most aggressive kickoff teams, we’re not afraid to do stuff and try and change the game that way. I think it’s interesting to watch, because you never really know what you’re going to see,” Cremascoli said.