Princeton – Trailing 21-0 and facing fourth down in the first quarter of its Class AAA playoff game at Princeton, Hampshire attempts a fake punt from its own 11.
Punter Brent Evans takes the snap, fires a pass to the 27 where it’s intercepted by returner Brad Mossor. The cowbells ring loud as the Tiger special teams unit that’s created an edge all year opens the postseason with another signature play.
At this point Tigers fans know that every special teams snap is almost as exciting as the offense it sets up.
“If you’re going to get a hot dog during a punt or a kickoff, you might want to stay,” Princeton special teams coach Derek Poszich laughs.
In his third year at the helm of the special teams unit Poszich has taken the foundational beliefs that helped turn Princeton into one of the top programs in the state and made it his own. Poz Ball, as it’s affectionately called, has Tiger fans on the edge of their seats and for good reason.
In their 10-0 regular season campaign, the Tigers blocked nine kicks, forced four turnovers, scored five touchdowns, compiled 650 yards on returns, allowed no touchdowns, made 91 percent of their kicks (56-for-62 on PATs and 3-for-3 of FGA) with a new field goal kicker and averaged 40 yards per punt.
That’s Poz Ball in full force – the program’s multi-year emphasis on special teams manifesting into game-changing results.
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Special teams has never been sexy. It’s often an afterthought to the average viewer and had become such a non-factor at the highest level that the NFL has tinkered with kickoff rules as well as changes to the kicking balls in recent years to make the phase more exciting.
Poszich has long held belief in the importance of it, though.
“I was always around a ton of people that were Virginia Tech fans so around that time I was growing up in the Beamer Ball era and I always thought special teams was really cool,” Poszich said. “Then as an avid and lifelong (Chicago) Bears fan my favorite player was (kick returner) Devin Hester. I loved watching return kicks and then I transferred here and played for coach (Ted) Spadaro and he was the head coach and also the special teams coordinator. I think that’s really what solidified how important special teams was.”
Beamer Ball is a style of play, or mindset popularized by former Virginia Tech head coach and special teams coordinator Frank Beamer, a 2018 College Football Hall of Fame inductee. Beamer, who spent 28 seasons in Blacksburg, brought Tech to national relevance with Beamer Ball, a philosophy that emphasized the game-changing capabilities of special teams as well as the scoring potential of defense.
Part of that philosophy also entailed putting your best players on the field for special teams. Poz Ball is no different. In his first year as the special teams coordinator, Poszich had eventual Kennedy Award winner Dom Collins returning kicks and punts. This year he has another Kennedy hopeful in Mossor returning kicks and he’s done it so well that after four return touchdowns, teams have attempted to kick away from him.
“You’ve got to have good players that are just buying in,” Poszich said. “It took a couple years to get the kids buying in but they’re really buying in we’re really getting after it now. There’s just a multitude of things that have kind of led to it from the beginning.”
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Years before Poszich came on staff, Princeton struggled in every phase. The Tigers spent most of the late 2010s scrapping to hit the two-win mark. Defeat taught the Tiger coaching staff many lessons, including how they could steal games.
One of those came in 2019, the last time Princeton had a losing season.
In a 42-34 win over Ripley, one of just two that year for the Tigers, they recovered several onside kicks to carve a path to victory. In the eyes of Keith Taylor, who served as the special teams coordinator for Chris Pedigo and the head coach of the Tigers from 2023-24, it changed the way the program thought of that phase.
“We as a staff just had a mindset that special teams can win or lose you a football game,” Taylor said. “We had seen the game-winning kick against Bluefield with (Casey) Geso, the four or five onside kick recoveries that helped us beat Ripley and the early years of giving up touchdowns on special teams.”
The aforementioned Geso kick came in the 2021 season and lifted Princeton to a 39-36 win over county rival Bluefield as time expired, snapping a five-game losing streak against the Beavers and starting a five-game winning streak that carries through this season.
The success and impact of that unit meant that Taylor was going to be selective when filling his old role following his elevation to head coach in the early winter of 2023. He landed on Poszich and had no doubts about what would come.
“When we had our first coaches meeting we were all talking about how to handle special teams and he immediately stepped up and said he would take it on,” Taylor said. “I had coached with Derek for many years prior and I knew when he agreed to do something he was going to do it with everything he had. It turned out to be the right decision!”
By all accounts it did and Taylor’s belief that special teams could win or lose you a game put Poszich’s unit in the limelight where it came it came through with a landmark victory for the program.
On Nov. 17, 2023, Princeton hosted a Class AAA quarterfinal game, aiming to earn the program’s first semifinal berth in its 100th season.
In that game Collins returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and late in the game the Tigers attempted an onside kick that was nearly returned for a touchdown until Collins made a tackle at the Princeton 9. That stop made the difference as the Tigers made a defensive stand, preserving a 41-37 victory.
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When Taylor resigned in February of 2025, there was no guarantee of what would happen with the staff. Many of the members followed Taylor out the door with both offensive and defensive coordinators resigning as well.
In came former Parkersburg South head coach Nate Tanner with an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, but he instead chose to promote some from within while keeping others such as Poszich in place. For Tanner the decision was an easier one. He had once been a coach who emphasized the other phases of football far more but one week changed his thought process on that.
“Coach (Daran) Hayes at North Marion asked me to help him coach in the North-South game,” Tanner said. “I believe it was in ’21. He also asked (Martinsburg) coach Britt Sherman to help that week too. At South we played Martinsburg a handful of times when I was there and they were always elite in special teams. Best special teams I’ve ever been around. That week coach Sherman and I, we roomed together so we talked until 2 or 3 in the morning every night and he was the special teams coordinator that week too so I got to learn a lot from him.
“Not just schematics but process – how they do things. I was a thief of all that stuff and went back to South and put more of premium on special teams and changed how we did stuff.”
When Tanner arrived in Princeton he was met with a successful special teams coach in Poszich who shared his enthusiasm for that facet of the game.
“When I got here, coach Poszich expressed to me how much he loved special teams and enjoyed it and he has a strong passion for it. I think it’s been – you can call it a match made in heaven really. I came in and I love special teams – it’s a big deal and he feels the same way so we bounce ideas off of each other and I let him run the ship. If I see something we need to tinker with I bring it up and he does an excellent job and we spend time every single day on special teams so it’s a big deal here. I think with him and the rest of our staff with what we’ve done on special team its helped us be the team that we are.”
The pair have been a perfect match since the 2025 campaign started. Building upon the Poz ball success in the return game, the two have worked together in other facets of special teams to make a difference.
“One of our first conversations was about continuing the success we’ve had in the past,” Poszich said. “We’ve always been really good at returning kicks. I mean it’s easy to do when you have guys like Brad, Dom and Marquel (Lowe). But we really wanted to put an emphasis on being able to block kicks this year and get turnovers on special teams. So his expertise on blocking scheme and alignments along with mine have really spearheaded the 2025 campaign in terms of being able to change the game.”
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If you canvas the sea of humanity at Hunnicutt Stadium you’ll see the extent of Poszich Ball. The success of his group has spawned a t-shirt with his likeness on it, the “O” replaced with a cartoon-style image of his head.
“It’s been really cool,” Poszich laughs. “JR1 Sports kind of started it. (Color commentator) Seth Angell is a big Tech fan and when Pedigo was here they would say, ‘That’s a coach Pedigo play!’ (Play-by-play man) Jason Reed said that. In ’23 we started ramping up and getting more returns and we’d hear Beamer Ball and Seth was like, ‘No, that’s Poszich Ball now!’
“It’s all been pretty cool. Fresh off the Clock made it into a graphic and my wife was like, ‘I have to have that shirt.’ So her and my aunt make shirts and now everybody is wanting shirts so it’s on Facebook and it’s caught like fire. Now my kickers and punters have them. It’s not about me at all. I just love what I and I love these kids and love this town and love being able to just be a part of it. But it’s cool being able to see those own the wild.”
Hester, the player Poszich grew up admiring, is the only player in NFL history to return the opening kick of the Super Bowl for a touchdown. The hope of the program now is that executioners of Poszich Ball can make similar impact plays on the West Virginia equivalent at Laidley Field in two weeks.
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