Kicking Tee vs Kicking Block: What’s the Difference?

The short answer: a kicking tee holds the ball off the ground for kickoffs and, at some levels, placekicks. A kicking block is a low, solid wedge used to raise the ball slightly for placekicks where a full tee is not permitted or not wanted. The tee lifts and tilts; the block mainly steadies.

In practice most kickers only need a tee. But the distinction matters because rules differ by level, and because the two produce genuinely different ball positions.

What a Kicking Tee Is

A kicking tee is a rubber or plastic stand that holds the football upright and clear of the ground. It comes in two main forms: a kickoff tee, which is taller and shaped to tilt the ball backward for height and hangtime, and a placement tee, which is lower and holds the ball nearer upright for a flat, fast trajectory.

Heights are typically one inch or two inches, with one inch the college and professional standard and two inches common in high school. Our height comparison covers what that difference does to your ball flight.

The defining feature is that a tee genuinely lifts the ball. Your foot meets clean air beneath it rather than digging into turf, which is what produces a clean strike and a repeatable contact point.

What a Kicking Block Is

A kicking block is a lower, more solid wedge. Rather than cradling the ball at a pronounced angle, it provides a small, stable raised platform that keeps the ball off wet or uneven ground and holds it steady.

Blocks are generally used for placekicks in situations where a full tee is not appropriate. Because they raise the ball less, they change your contact point less — you are kicking something closer to a ground-level ball with the worst of the turf interference removed.

They tend to be simpler, flatter and more compact than tees, and they are a considerably smaller part of the market.

The Practical Differences

The most consequential difference is launch angle. A tee, particularly a kickoff tee, meaningfully changes the trajectory you get from the same swing. A block largely does not — it removes turf interference without altering your contact geometry much.

Which You Need

For the overwhelming majority of kickers, the answer is a tee.

If you kick off, you need a kickoff tee — a block cannot provide the backward tilt that generates hangtime, and no amount of technique compensates for that.

If you take placekicks at high school level or below, where tees are generally permitted, a placement tee gives you a consistent, repeatable ball position that a block cannot match.

If you are practising, a tee is what you want regardless of level, because the consistency is what makes repetition meaningful.

A block becomes relevant in the narrower cases where a tee is not permitted or where you specifically want minimal change to your contact geometry. Confirm what your league allows before assuming either — our rules guide explains how.

The Rules Angle

Equipment legality is where this distinction actually bites, and it varies more than people expect.

Tees are permitted for kickoffs at essentially every level. For placekicks, high school and youth football generally allow them, while college and the NFL require a holder instead.

Where a block sits depends entirely on your governing body, and high school rules in particular are set state by state and revised between seasons. There is no useful universal answer, which is exactly why this guide keeps pointing you back to your coach rather than giving you a number.

Ask once, in pre-season, and write the answer down with a date on it. That two-minute habit resolves the entire category of equipment-legality problems.

How Each Changes Your Technique

Worth understanding because switching between them without adjusting is a common source of confusion.

A tee raises the ball enough that your contact point shifts noticeably. Your foot meets the ball lower relative to its centre, which increases launch angle. Kickers moving from a taller tee to a lower one find their contact point is calibrated too high and their kicks come out flat until they adjust.

A block keeps the ball closer to ground level, so your contact point is closer to what you would use kicking off turf. You get less natural lift and you supply more of it yourself.

The practical implication is the same as with any equipment change: whatever you compete on, practise on. Switching between substantially different ball heights within a week without deliberate blocks of practice on each miscalibrates you for both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why the Confusion Exists

The tee-versus-block question comes up more than the size of the block market would suggest, and the reason is largely terminology.

People use the words loosely. Some catalogues describe low placement tees as blocks, some coaches use the terms interchangeably, and older equipment lists occasionally use “block” for anything that raises the ball for a placekick. If you have heard the two words used as synonyms, you were not imagining it.

There is also a genuine grey area in the middle of the range. A very low, flat placement tee and a slightly raised block do broadly similar things, and the distinction between them becomes more about design intent than about function. The clear cases — a tall tilted kickoff tee at one end, a minimal steadying wedge at the other — are obviously different. The middle is fuzzier.

For practical purposes, ignore the terminology and focus on two questions: how much does this raise the ball, and does it hold the ball at an angle? Those two properties determine what the equipment actually does to your kick, regardless of what it is called.

What Ball Height Actually Changes

Since height is the meaningful variable, it is worth being specific about its effects.

Contact point. The higher the ball sits, the lower on the ball your foot meets it relative to its centre. Striking lower sends the ball up, which is why a taller tee produces more launch angle from an identical swing. This is the mechanism behind the whole one-inch versus two-inch discussion.

Margin for error. A raised ball gives you clearance beneath it. On a two-inch tee, slightly low contact still catches ball. On a low block, the same strike catches turf first and produces a chunked kick. More height is more forgiving, which helps beginners and hides faults from developing kickers.

Turf interference. Even a small amount of lift removes the worst of it. This is the primary function of a block — not to change your trajectory, but to stop the ground being involved in the strike at all.

Consistency. Anything that fixes the ball in a repeatable position helps, and both tees and blocks do this far better than ground-level kicking. The variability of grass is genuinely larger than most kickers appreciate until they remove it.

Practical Scenarios

The pattern is that a tee handles almost every scenario, and the block occupies the narrow case where a tee is unavailable or not permitted. That is why the market reflects the same imbalance.

Buying Considerations

If you have concluded you want a tee — as most readers will — the buying decisions are covered properly in our buyer’s walkthrough. In summary: confirm your legal height first, choose heavy rubber over hard plastic, match the type to whether you kick off or place, pick a colour you can find in grass, and buy a spare.

If you specifically need a block, the considerations are simpler because there is less to choose between. Look for solid construction that will not compress under repeated striking, a base wide enough to stay stable on soft ground, and enough weight that it does not shift during your approach. The same material logic applies — rubber over hard plastic, because plastic goes brittle in cold and can split.

In both cases, confirm legality before purchase rather than after. It is the single most expensive mistake available in this category, because equipment you cannot use in competition is equipment you have to buy twice.

A Note on Ground Kicking

Worth mentioning the third option, which is no equipment at all.

Kicking a ball sitting directly on turf is genuinely harder and considerably less consistent. The ball settles differently every time depending on the grass, your foot has to dig underneath it, and the strike is rougher on your foot. It is the situation both tees and blocks exist to improve on.

There are occasional reasons to practise it — some kickoff formats involve a ground kick, and it builds a certain robustness — but it should not be your default practice setup. The inconsistency actively works against the repetition that builds skill.

If you have no equipment at all and want to start kicking, a tee is genuinely the first thing to buy, ahead of almost anything else. Our equipment priority guide explains why it sits first on the list.

What Matters More Than Either Choice

Having spent this guide distinguishing two pieces of equipment, it is worth putting the distinction in proportion.

Whether you use a tee or a block will affect your kicking considerably less than whether you set it up consistently, whether your plant foot lands in the same place, and whether you check your laces. Equipment choice is a one-time decision with a modest effect; setup discipline is a decision you make on every single repetition and its effects compound.

Kickers gravitate toward equipment questions because they are concrete and solvable in an afternoon, whereas technique questions are ambiguous and take months. That is understandable and it is also why so many people own excellent equipment and kick inconsistently.

The genuinely high-leverage items are unglamorous. Confirm your legal height once a season. Buy heavy rubber. Own a spare. Then stop thinking about equipment entirely and go work on your plant foot, which causes more missed kicks than every equipment decision combined.

Our setup guide covers the three seconds of placement discipline that matters more than which product you bought, and our accuracy drills guide covers the technique work that matters more still.

Summary for the Impatient

If you have read this far and want the whole thing compressed: buy a tee. Get it at the height your league permits, in heavy rubber, in a colour you can find in long grass, and buy two while you are at it. If you kick off as well as place, buy one of each type because the tilt genuinely matters. Blocks exist and serve a narrow purpose, and unless a specific rule or preference points you toward one, they are not the equipment you are looking for.

Then spend your remaining attention on setting it up identically every time, because that is where the actual returns are.

A Note on Practising With Both

A small number of kickers end up using a tee in some situations and a block or ground kick in others, usually because of differing rules between their league and their practice environment. If that is you, treat them as genuinely separate setups rather than assuming your technique transfers unchanged.

The reason is contact point. A ball raised two inches and a ball raised half an inch present your foot with meaningfully different geometry, and your body calibrates to whichever you use most. Alternating between them randomly within a session means your contact point averages between two positions and is correct for neither.

The workable approach is the same as for kickers training on two tee heights: keep them in separate blocks within a session, do the more demanding setup first while you are fresh, and always finish on whatever you will actually compete with. That last point matters most — the final impression your nervous system takes away should match game conditions.

If you can avoid the split entirely, do. Practising on exactly what you compete on is worth more than any equipment refinement, and one consistent setup beats two well-managed ones.

Why This Question Comes Up at All

It is worth closing by acknowledging that the tee-versus-block question is, for most kickers, a question they did not need to ask. The market has largely settled on tees, the rules at most levels assume tees, and virtually every drill and coaching resource is written around them.

The question tends to arise in three situations. Someone has inherited a bag of mixed equipment and does not know what they are looking at. Someone has encountered the terms used interchangeably and wants to know whether they are missing something. Or someone plays under a rule set where tees are restricted for placekicks and is looking for what is permitted instead.

All three are legitimate, and all three resolve the same way: identify how much the item lifts the ball and whether it holds it at an angle, confirm what your league permits, and then buy the tee unless something specific rules it out. That is not a dismissive answer — it is genuinely where the reasoning lands for the great majority of kickers.

What is worth taking from the comparison is the underlying principle rather than the product recommendation. Ball height changes your contact point, contact point changes your launch angle, and any equipment that fixes the ball in a consistent position is doing the job that matters. Understanding that means you can evaluate any piece of kit you encounter, whatever it is called.

Buy the tee, confirm the height with your coach, and spend the attention you save on your plant foot instead.

That is the whole of it, and it is a shorter answer than the question usually deserves.

Keep Going

Equipment legality varies by level and association. Confirm with your coach or governing body before competition.