Finally, special teams....

Now we arrive at special teams.  This is often the most painful look back, and while it was, perhaps, not as horrific as most years, this is clearly an area where the program has consistently underperformed and can improve.  Urban used to say that there was no reason for us not to have the best special teams in the nation.  We would settle for the best in the MAC....

One other note.  I do feel that special teams stats do not always tell a full story.  A punter who sticks a team inside the 20 could be cheating himself on yardage.  A kickoff returned outside the 35 is a failure for the kicking team, even if it is a squib kick with a 5 yard return.  It doesn't matter so much if you get 0 yards or 4 yards on a punt return, but a turnover or TD can change a game.

So, I created a scoring system that scored most normal plays as a zero, and then gave points for plays better than normal and deducted points for plays worse than normal.  I named this the International Centre for Special Teams Research, and did a season review after the UT game.  The basic analysis was that we were outperformed in every game until the last 3 or 4, when we finally brought things around...and, of course, the UT game was our best.  You can click here (The ICSTR) for more info.

Now, looking at the more normal stats (conference games only)....

We were 9th in kickoff returns, despite having Roger Williams, our best KO returner in recent memory.  We did have one TD, on an onside kick.

We were 8th in net punting.  Iovenelli did a nice job getting the ball inside the 20, but less so inside the 10 and was probably not consistent on defense.  The top 9 teams in the MAC only had a 3-yard difference per punt, which is next to nothing.  We were not blocked, a success on its own, based on past seasons.

We were 5th in punt returns.  We got some nice returns when Freddie was back there.  Willie Geter had a ton of fair catches, which, by the way, I'm fine with.  It is great to rip off a big return, but with our offense, the primary thing I want to do is hold onto the ball.  Also, we blocked four punts, something that can really change a game if a team can figure out how to do it.

As for placekicking, we only made 61.5% of our kicks, which was the 11th in the conference.  The percentages don't tell the whole story, however.  If you try a bunch of FGs over 40 yards, you're gonna miss more.  This was the case for our team.  Last year, I identified that MAC kickers make 80% of their FGs inside 40 yards.  BG's kickers (using ALL games now) were 10-19 inside 40.  We also had 3 blocked.  And, Phillips had a better percentage than Norsic, yet Norsic took the job and held it.

The strongest point of our game was kickoff coverage.  We were second in the MAC in kick depth, and fourth in net yardage.  The top 10 teams in the MAC had a seven yard difference per kickoff.

That's the story of special teams.  Certainly, this is an area of improvement, and it is already better than some of the awful years under Coach Brandon.  It is always disappointing to me that we often do not have even an average kicker--it just doesn't seem like it should be that difficult.