Excited and hopeful on Special Teams

According to some practice reports, Anand has been running special teams like the Navy. We have the game breakers for this unit to pay dividends.

I want to see them clearly catch and return punts. Our special teams have been awful.

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Yeah 2022 was just as bad on ST as 2023 was on defense. Also last year I have no clue WTF was going on between Slade Roy and Peyton Todd but we could not get a snap and hold down for a FG to save our lives it was ridiculous.

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Forgot about that despite never seeing anything that shitty in my lifetime.

Gotta love Les for this reason alone - dude was a freak about special teams play. Kickoff coverage was basically the best 11 guys on the team, no matter what.

Some things have changed a bit relative to kicking that have diminished the ability to return both kickoffs and punts. That may have a bit to do with it.

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Some things have changed a bit relative to kicking that have diminished the ability to return both kickoffs and punts. That may have a bit to do with it.

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That has a lot to do with it. The risk is much greater than the reward relative to the 90s that OP refers to. Kickers and punters are both focused on kicking it higher and hang time, which allows the coverage guys to get down the field faster and be closer to the returners when they get the ball, increasing the chances of both straight up muffs AND fumbles. It’s really obvious on punts. I don’t have the data—or no exactly where to find it—but I would bet just about anything that both the number of returns and yards per return are significantly down from 30 years ago throughout college football.

Kickers are kicking off 5 yards closer (I think—damn you, getting old)—but they’re also getting the ball at the 25 on touchbacks instead of the 20. So good kickers are either just kicking it through the back of the end zone or kicking it so high, there’s almost no chance of a big return because there’s 3 or 4 guys right on the returner by the time they catch it.

And offenses are so much better now is a factor too. I was fine with us fair catching every punt and not returning any kicks caught in the end zone and just taking the ball at the 25 in ‘23 since we scored just about every possession that season. The juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze that season. And it’s usually not worth the squeeze for anybody. The risk is higher and the incentive is lower.

The days of “consistent 15-25 yard” punt returns the OP longs for are long gone. You have to have a really special return guy for it to be worth attempting, because they are gonna have to be slippery enough to make a couple of guys miss, find a hole, and then be fast enough to beat everybody to the house..

This year, we are blessed with a few of those guys, so I expect it to be an outlier season where we return a significantly higher number of both kicks and punts than we have previously. But there’s still no chance we get 15-25 yards consistently (on punt returns). Our average should be higher, but it will be because we should have more 50+ yarders to average out the 1-5 yarders that will continue to be more standard.

Coverage teams have to be significantly better, though. Definitely no argument there. And I agree with the snap/hold on kicks last year being almost unforgivable. Not only do I not remember a year being so bad as last year’s, I don’t remember another year at all. Which is the way it should be.

Didn't have a return game at all with coach O. That was are weakest area in 2019. Stingly was basically back there to catch punts. At least we had a td return last year.