ICSTR
Welcome back to the latest edition of the International Centre for Special Teams Research. If you want to see how all this started, you can read the originating post here, but here is the basic idea: it isn't the small yardage differences that you are really worried about.
If you typically have 35 net yards on a punt, you don't really care if it is 31 or 39. What matters is when it is 20 or 50, or when a game changing (or influencing) play (touchdown, turnover, block) occurs. I established a broad range of typical results. These are worth no points because they are what you expect a MAC team to do. Positive plays are worth points (from 1 to 6) and negative plays are worth negative points (-1 to -6). First, for Bowling Green, it was another losing game. Our net was -3. (See below, we have only been above 0 once).
On the plus side, we didn't have any big plays go against us, and on the downside, we didn't make any big plays either. Every play was one point. BG nailed three punts inside the 20, a touchback and a nice kickoff return, added to a 44 yard FG for Phillips. On the downside, BG had nine negative plays. The worst, by far, was the kickoff game. We had four returns outside 35 yard line. Throw in a couple of poor punt plays, a holding penalty that negated a short kick by Ball State and getting nailed inside the 20 on a kickoff, and you have nine negative plays. Yes, this is death by a thousand cuts....but signals what I would say is somewhat below average special teams play, just without the TD this week.
Bowling Green Positive (+6)
BG punt inside 20 (+1)
BG 44 yard FG (+1)
BG Kickoff touchback (+1)
BG punt to BSU 13 (+1)
BSU kickoff returned to BG 38 (+1)
BG Punt to BSU 15 (+1)
Bowling Green Negative (-9)
BG misses 33 yd FG (-1)
BG kickoff returned to BSU 38 (-1)
BSU Punt 33 yard net, based on BG Penalty (-1)
BG kickoff returned to BSU 36 (-1)
BG Kickoff returned to BSU 39 (-1)
BG Punt 15 yard net (-1)
BG kickoff returned to BSU 39 (-1)
BSU kickoff returned to BG 14 (-1)
BG punt 1 yard net, with penalty (-1)
Bowling Green neutral
BSU Kickoff returned to BG 34
BG xp
BG kickoff returned to BSU 33
BG xp
BG xp
BG xp
BG Punt 34 yard net.
Meanwhile, we one team is negative the other is positive. Not always.....some plays (such as a kickoff touchback) are only scored for one team, since the returning team didn't have much to do with it. Obviously, Ball State had a good day on kickoff returns, and put one punt inside the 20. The most impressive thing is that Ball had only three negative plays. Clearly, they won the special teams game on points. By the way, I don't claim to know the answer to the Stan Parrish controversy, but I will say this: the asinine swapping of kickers back and forth like he was doing reflects poorly. McGarvey could probably kick for most teams in the MAC...you just gotta leave him out there and get it done. So he missed a couple xps....is that the worse thing going on out there.
Ball State Positive (+7)
Ball State Punt to BG 15 (+1)
Ball State Negative (-3)
BSU missed 37 yard FG (-1)
Ball State Neutral
Now, let's look at the season so far. As you can see, there has been a consistently drubbing for BG's special teams. When looking at our plays, we are generating more positives than we did against Troy, Marshall and Boise, but also more negatives. The last few weeks, we have been -4 or -3.
| Positive | Negative | Net | |
| Troy | +3 | -5 | -2 |
| Missouri | +10 | -5 | +5 |
| Marshall | +2 | -6 | -4 |
| Boise | 0 | -4 | -4 |
| OU | +8 | -12 | -4 |
| Kent | +7 | -11 | -4 |
| BSU | +6 | -9 | -3 |
| Total | +36 | -52 | -16 |
When looking at opponent's plays, we can see that only Boise has scored in the negative range, but that the opposition has made seven positive plays in all games except Boise.
| Positive | Negative | Net | |
| Troy | +7 | -2 | +5 |
| Missouri | +8 | -8 | 0 |
| Marshall | +7 | -3 | +4 |
| Boise | +5 | -7 | -2 |
| Ohio U | +13 | -9 | +4 |
| Kent | +13 | -3 | +10 |
| BSU | +7 | -3 | +4 |
| Total | +60 | -35 | +25 |
The bottom line is that we are 41 points behind our opponents, which is almost six points per game.
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