Never punts..... Always onside kick....
Since the RedBlacks have nothing to lose this year, would it be worth it for the team to adopt the Presbyterian Blue Hose (FCS) coaching philosophy?
Presbyterian goes for it on 4th down all of the time and never punts. Ottawa could go for it regardless of the location on 3rd down all of the time.
Presbyterian also goes for 2 after every touchdown.
Presbyterian also does an onside kickoff every time too.
Opposing teams would catch on pretty quickly.
The special teams is easily Ottawaâs best of the three phases. Why would you not utilize it?
I don't know what the analytics would be for doing that in the CFL.
Everyone knows the onside kick is coming for Presbyterian (and at the high school where this coach came from) and they still do it and get suitable overall odds anyway.
Canadian onside kicks have a better chance than American ones because they don't need to bounce, and they don't need to be cleanly recovered, only batted out by the kicking team.
I do wonder what would happen if a team went for rugby-style onside kicks. Rugby has similar kickoff rules (ball has to go 10 yards/metres), yet long kicks in rugby are very rare.
The on side kicks in the last Riders/Stamps game was done very well . 
The last scrub kick was done to perfection . Another great ending except for the too early 50/50 ball play .
Back in the 1970âs the Pop Warner team I played on found itself at a disadvantage. We were the smallest team in the league and other teams could ârun over usâ on special teams. What did our bat s*** crazy coach do? He had us go for it on 3rd down every game and we finished near the top of the league three years in a row.
So it worked for us but we were teenagers playing for a guy who thought he was the second coming of Vince Lombardi. 
I've never seen Presbyterian play, so help me out here.
Are they like an FCS version of The Citadel in basketball? As in, there are particular circumstances (e.g. ultra-tough academics) that mean they can't recruit the quality of players needed to run a "standard style" offense going up against the same style of opponents, so they have to do something quirky to compensate?
The school is poor in the sense they were forced (together with 10 other schools like them with Div. I basketball) to be classified at a minimum as FCS whether they offer football scholarships or not. The Pioneer Football League came into existence for schools with Div. I basketball but are too poor to have a fully funded FCS football program.
This means the school has to compete against schools offering up to 63 athletic scholarships in the playoffs if their school should win the Pioneer Football League. Presbyterian doesnât offer football scholarships so they have to recruit quality athletes with rich parents.
There might be some merit in Canadian football for onside punting every 3rd down when scrimmaging from the middle of the field.
It's a tradeoff in that you will probably end up with reduced net punting yards but end up with the ball a significant percentage of the time.
You also wouldn't have to do it the same way every time using a variety of formations and pre snap motion to keep the return team on their toes and guessing.
Could develop into a more frequent and intriguing part of the game
The problem with the onside punt is that you have to have a guy hang back onside, which is a dead giveaway to the opposition way before the kick is made. The only reason that it ever works is that you only see it once every three years so no one prepares to see it. If you did it every game the return team would be ready and waiting for it and it would never work.
Perhaps strategies would evolve where it becomes useful more often than not irrespective of whether the return team knows its coming or not.
For example, instead of lining up 15 yards back of the LOS for the regular slow long stride for a deep punt, the punter could line up perhaps half that distance for a quick high pooch kick 20 yards downfield.
This would nullify no yards with the onside players now only 7 yards back at the kick with a running start from further back. It would make fielding the punt a trickier and returning even harder. Your 20 yard punt would just about net 20 even if you didnât come up with the ball.
It wouldnât have to be executed everytime but could prove useful as youâd essentially be creating a loose ball or prone returner modestly into opposition territory every time you did it.
The downside if this strategy were employed more frequently is that with no yards being nullified by kamikaze onside players bearing down on unprotected returners, there would probably be some new contrived bandaid rule change for safety and weâd be back to square 1.
If you wanted an onside punt to be routinely useful, itâs success rate would have to be at least close to 50%. Even if executed as you describe to maximize the odds of success, it would effectively be defended just like an onside kickoff with those same odds of success which are nowhere near 50%.
Good thinking though, as Iâm certain that every ST coach in the last 40 years has tried to work out the same plan but hasnât been able to defeat the odds.