ICSTR--Temple

The ICSTR has met again following the Temple victory, and has some interesting things to say about the victory over the Owls.

The scholars have scheduled a retreat for later this winter to study punt returns, which is the one area the ICSTR does not cover adequately.  The system was designed to work strictly on net yards.  The typical net punt in the MAC is about 38 yards.  We give +1 for a net punt over 45 yards and -1 for one over 25.  You can also score for punts inside the 20 and 10.  That was actually how the whole thing started....it seemed unfair to punish a punter who either pooched a kick to get it inside the 10, hurting his average, or drilled a 60 yard low punt that was returned 20 yards.

The downside of this approach is that there were 3 big punt returns that had field position impact in the Temple game that still ended up with nets between 25 and 45.  From the kicking team's perspective, they work out the same as if a 35 yard punt had gone out of bounds, but it seems like those plays are worth something.  At the same time, I thought about giving a +1 for the returns, but then I feel like you have to give the punting team a -1 for allowing the return, and now you are punishing them for how they got that 35 yard net...anyway.  The punt return is largely gone from the college game, so the system gets bailed out a lot.

BG won the special teams battle, though there were not really any big special teams plays---touchdowns, blocks, turnovers, etc.  The biggest was a missed FG.

BG's positive plays were a 48 yard net punt (even with the touchback), a punt downed inside the 10 (+2), a kickoff returned to the 42.  The only negative play was an out of bounds kickoff (-1), leaving BG +3 for the day.

Temple had a punt downed at the 2 (+2), a 47 yard net punt, a kickoff touchback, and a 64 yard net punt for (+5).

On the negative side, they had a penalty that created a 20 yard net punt, allowed the Boo Boo kickoff return, missed a 39 yard field goal and had a penalty that created a 52 yard net punt. (-4) for a net of +1.

For the year, BG is having a good but not great year.  We aren't getting the negative numbers we had in the middle of last year, but at the same time, when the games are in + territory, they are the low pluses.  BG's punting and return games are really coming around and look good moving forward, placekicking and kickoff defense remain the issues.