ICSTR Final Report

So, the International Centre for Special Teams Research has issued its report for 2010.  With the season over, they're now closing the books, preparing the archives, and preparing to disperse to their homes on the four corners of the earth.  A farewell dinner complete with chanting is expected, though nothing more can be said in such a public forum.

For the final day, Bowling Green had a negative special teams game after 3 straight games in the orange/positive range.  It was an odd game in that there were more negative and positive plays--the system is designed to produce a lot of plays that are zeros, ie, just in the normal range.  Of course, BG had a fumbled kickoff which is -3 right off the bat, and then there were some good punts and some bad punts, and some good kickoff returns and some bad kickoff returns, and it all balances out at -2.  Obviously, the wind plays havoc with kicking but the ICSTR doesn't differentiate.

So, as you can see, when the 2010 season is reviewed, BG's special teams were much better.  Not that they didn't have a ways to go.  We'll do a full statistical analysis later.  But, my impression is that the punting game was better and the kickoff defense game was also much better.  We also had a couple punt returns for TDs, which I don't think we had the year before, and that certainly helps the overall total.

So, based on the methods created and propagated by the ICSTR, BG had a much better season on special teams, though considerable work remains to be done, especially on the placekicking front.

So let it be written.