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Spring Preview: Special Teams

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All of Visions breakdowns mentioned blocking breakdown on kick return. I’m not ready to blame any kicker returners until that’s cleaned up. It’s on Hartley to get it figured out
 
KR and PR are going to continuously improve here as we get more elite guys. The more top level athletes we have, the better they'll be, So I'm not really worried about that much tbh.

As far as the punt unit is concerened, I think the last year we had VERY GOOD gunners. I think that hartley has them coached up well to get down there ASAP. yeah, Feagles struggled, but he was a TRUE FROSH Punter. I think with a full offseason he will be much improved. Personally I hope we just punt less, but I don't think that'll ever be Richts game. I think anything past like our own 35-40, 4th and less than 5 we should go for. Teams don't go for 4th down conversions enough, and statistically its really ***ing stupid not to.

Kickoff, Idk why we use those weird funky formations, but whatever, if we don't give up a bunch of big gains or a TD IDC. Hopefully Baxa will have the leg to get a **** load of touchbacks.
 
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We have a real chance to have a disastrous situation at Kicker. You never know with freshmans Kickers. They miss a kick, and it could be full blown yips. This position is a complete unknown for us.
 
Why was Jeff Thomas so crappy at kick returns? Kid has elite speed. Was it his vision? Lack of wiggle? Lack of strength?
 
JT4 is not the answer at KR !

I like Thomas but he was down right awful as a return man.. Special teams blocking must get better as well
 
I wondered why DJ wasn’t returning KOs last year. Thomas was not good at it. After seeing what DJ could do at RB, I’m convinced that he would have been better than Thomas. I’d also put DJ at returning punts.
 
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I have seen some on other sites argue that in today's game, fair-catch and touch-backs are, according to the data, better plays than run-backs. Sure you lose the chance of a home run TD or big yards, but you also lose the risk of penalty and being backed up inside the 20. Plus there are almost no turnovers. Watching what we did last season makes me wonder if CMR has joined the "stat-geek" group and adopted this philosophy. Has anyone here done the number crunching?
 
TpaBayFlyFisher said:
I have seen some on other sites argue that in today's game, fair-catch and touch-backs are, according to the data, better plays than run-backs. Sure you lose the chance of a home run TD or big yards, but you also lose the risk of penalty and being backed up inside the 20. Plus there are almost no turnovers. Watching what we did last season makes me wonder if CMR has joined the "stat-geek" group and adopted this philosophy. Has anyone here done the number crunching?
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Thomas almost always elected to run the kick out, so there was no stat geek crap going on. He just wasn’t very effective running back kicks. I think a lot of that has to do with hapless blocking. Most of the time Thomas returned a kick there were 3 or 5 free runners on top of him as soon as he hit the 5 yard line.
 
I was hard on Feagles during the season, but he played his best the latter part of the season, my guess is he'll be fine.
Special teams had the juju last year, how does no opposing kicker miss a single kick? **** the guy from SU, IIRC, slips and still hits a 53 yarder!
 
calinative umstudent said:
KR and PR are going to continuously improve here as we get more elite guys. The more top level athletes we have, the better they'll be, So I'm not really worried about that much tbh.

As far as the punt unit is concerened, I think the last year we had VERY GOOD gunners. I think that hartley has them coached up well to get down there ASAP. yeah, Feagles struggled, but he was a TRUE FROSH Punter. I think with a full offseason he will be much improved. Personally I hope we just punt less, but I don't think that'll ever be Richts game. I think anything past like our own 35-40, 4th and less than 5 we should go for. Teams don't go for 4th down conversions enough, and statistically its really ***ing stupid not to.

Kickoff, Idk why we use those weird funky formations, but whatever, if we don't give up a bunch of big gains or a TD IDC. Hopefully Baxa will have the leg to get a **** load of touchbacks.
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Unless our short yardage run game improves I can't get behind that, when you're getting stuffed in the RZ inside the three....
 
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JT looked slow and terrible returning kicks. DJ looked much better. That unit overall was putrid to say the least. Most ST units were putrid. Still waiting for someone w access to ask Richt about ST in general and why it should be at least good this year.
 
I know everyone loves Hartley for recruiting but he's in way over his head coaching special teams. Is it too much to ask for a coach that can actually coach and recruit?
 
HarrietTubmanCane said:
Your kick returner must be fearless. Hester combined elite vision + speed + fearlessness that’s the required/desired qualities. If Lingard is what we expect (reliable, ready to contribute) in spring and fall camp than I’d put Travis Homer and Deejay Dallas on KO return. They embody those 3 qualities the most. I trust a combination of those two at PR as well. I can just see Homer taking these to the house as an upperclassman.

As previously stated, blocking is the #1 issue of our return teams, no one even touches the opposing team.
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If Lingard can grab 15 carries a game for us next season then Homer is for sure our best bet returning kicks and punts.
 
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The thing I don’t understand, is Richt runs a very disciplined team, yet the special teams unit was a discombobulated mess to put it nicely. Having Badgley kick was like Russian Roulette...he sure missed some chip shots, and the infamous xtra point...not mention his onside kick house call...yet 100% kicking against us...personal bests against us. Feagles punting was worse than Sievers kickoffs. If Feagle shanks one punt this year, I would consider him forever tainted and pull his scholly. Is there a plan of action to have an adequate unit? Here we are at The U, with elite athletes and Im asking, should we settle for adequate when we used to expect superior ST?
 
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