Please forgive me and please be nice. I'm not understanding all the negative comments about special teams. The kickoff return yesterday for a TD was awful but, other than that, haven't our kickoffs, punts, field goals, extra points, kickoff returns, and punt returns as a whole been better than we've seen in years? Is yesterday's return for a TD and the screwup on the Louisiana punt return (first game of the season) what folks are upset about?
Special teams...
- Thread starter HomeBoyDawg
- Start date
Several were close to being blocked,
And so we run KO's out of the endzone, and get tackled inside the 15. What's that ****?
The 25 is a given....
And so we run KO's out of the endzone, and get tackled inside the 15. What's that ****?
The 25 is a given....
Huge penalty on our kickoff return after we gave up the kickoff for a TD. We've had to burn 2 timeouts by not having the correct personnel on the field on special teams. We've missed 2 FG's this year. Also, had 2 of the same number's once that didn't get called, would have cost us a first down. We fumbled a punt return but recovered. Honestly, thru 3 games it's been a comedy of errors.
Day has been mostly good, Christmann has been fine, everything else has been rough. I realize that K-State’s special teams helped keep us in the game, but our own special teams cost us the game in the 4th quarter. The return TD was obviously bad, but the holding on the kick return right after that was enormous. Kept us backed up for most of the 4th quarter and gave them great field position. They started at midfield on the possession where they scored the go ahead TD.
The suspensions are probably hurting us on ST, I don’t doubt that, but we are having huge problems on special teams while we have an above average punter and above average kicker. That’s on coaching to me. Kickoffs specifically have me scratching my head. We’ve shown that we have a guy that can kick it out of the end zone, why would you try to to do anything other than that by kicking it shorter, especially when you’re under-manned? The risk of giving up a big play is far greater than the reward of saving 5-10 yards of field position by tackling the guy at the 15 or 20 instead of getting a touchback.
The suspensions are probably hurting us on ST, I don’t doubt that, but we are having huge problems on special teams while we have an above average punter and above average kicker. That’s on coaching to me. Kickoffs specifically have me scratching my head. We’ve shown that we have a guy that can kick it out of the end zone, why would you try to to do anything other than that by kicking it shorter, especially when you’re under-manned? The risk of giving up a big play is far greater than the reward of saving 5-10 yards of field position by tackling the guy at the 15 or 20 instead of getting a touchback.
If you just look at numbers, yeah, Day has been fine. But if you go to the games, you will see that Day sucks. His longer punts have been short ones that don't get fielded and roll for 20 yards. We also do something stupid where he doesn't line up directly behind the long snapper....he snaps it at an angle, so the punter is actually a couple of yards closer to the line of scrimmage than most teams - so yeah, we're going to get some punts blocked. We also had a couple of high snaps Saturday. Kansas State's punter was booming the ball - that's what a good punter looks like.
Kick coverage is atrocious. Field goal kicking is decent but should be better. Christmann missed a 43 yarder last week and the long one he hit Saturday struggled to be long enough from 47. For the life of me, I don't understand why we can't find a kicker to kick the ball out of the end zone on kickoffs - like most other teams have.
Suspensions have hurt special teams but they shouldn't. Matt Wyatt even said as much in the post game - you don't have to put your best players on special teams. Special teams is all about effort and coaching (his words, and I agree with him).
I think the special teams have been so poor it is time to use starters on special teams. I know very few do this, but we are horrible. I know it brings more injury potential in play, but that kickoff return swung the momentum Saturday.
Don't have to use starters, but we should at least use 2nd teamers. We have several 3rd stringers out there.
I thought as whole, our special teams play was pretty bad. Mainly coverage. On Day's good punts, there was no one near the returner. Any good punt should be a fair catch. Unless you just bomb one 70 yards out of the blue. I think K State's mishaps masked a few other punt coverages. I thought our kickoff coverage wasn't good either. Whoever was kicking off was placing them perfectly and making it really hard for the return team to do anything but K State found a way. When you're kicker is putting it on the goal line in between the numbers and the sideline with good hang time, it should be a maximum return of 20 yards but really there were a few times were should've tackled them on the 10 or 15.
Overall, coverage concerns me. Kickers and punters did pretty well. I think Day got caught up in them going for the block in a few cases which led to a poorer punt. It may have been tipped but I don't think it was for every punt that they got close to blocking. Regardless, you got to put your head down and worry about that punt and nothing else. Not saying it's easy. Plus there's also a significant amount of trust in your shield to be able to solely focus on that punt. I'd have to watch the endzone angle to see how protection is set up as it's a little different than what we did when I was there. There were times that they'd bring the house on me but if our times were correct, no matter that they did, they'd never block it. Mullen had that down to a science. Regardless, special teams was disappointing Saturday.
Overall, coverage concerns me. Kickers and punters did pretty well. I think Day got caught up in them going for the block in a few cases which led to a poorer punt. It may have been tipped but I don't think it was for every punt that they got close to blocking. Regardless, you got to put your head down and worry about that punt and nothing else. Not saying it's easy. Plus there's also a significant amount of trust in your shield to be able to solely focus on that punt. I'd have to watch the endzone angle to see how protection is set up as it's a little different than what we did when I was there. There were times that they'd bring the house on me but if our times were correct, no matter that they did, they'd never block it. Mullen had that down to a science. Regardless, special teams was disappointing Saturday.
Succeeded in getting Swede to post his thoughts. Mission accomplished.
Oh, and I now understand why all the negative comments about special teams. Thanks, Sixpackers!
Oh, and I now understand why all the negative comments about special teams. Thanks, Sixpackers!
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This guy was on the field when K-State broke the hundred yarder...
https://hailstate.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=5395
I’m pretty sure no other teams do this.
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