Here is our explanation on the punting and kicking, and I'll give my opinions on them. Our long snapper is able to snap the ball 20 yards easily. He didn't start long snapping until the second game. Sometimes our punter lines up 10 yards deep, sometimes 15. Sometimes the staff wants him to have more space, I assume because our punting protection is atrocious. My opinion is if you line the punter up 15 yards deep, it just makes him have to punt it farther. So on any given punt, that will help us in a huge way, or hurt. Against WA, the long snapper wore gloves for the first two punts, and apparently he never wears them snapping in practice on 15 yarders. He was told to take them off for the third punt, and the snap and kick were perfect. Whether our punter was told to line up 15 yards deep on those particular punts, I don't know for sure, but when we have punted near midfield, he has lined up 10 yards deep. I think we just need to pick a spot and be consistent with it, but we have come so close so many times to getting them blocked, I don't know.
I know it's hard for many to believe, with the talent we have, but we just don't have a good kicker who can kick it deep on kickoffs. We can barely make PATs or field goals. Our kickers on average can kick them to around the 17 yard line, which means on average the other team will return them to around their 35. We tried one deep kick to Albemarle, the returner brought it to Louisa's 35. If we had a kicker who can kick it in the endzone, we'd do it. Back in 2006, we had the best kicker we ever had, Eric Church, and he always pooch kicked it super high. It resulted in 21 kickoff turnovers on the season, should've been 22. So we'd rather kick it that way or onside kick it instead of risking a good return that statistics say would be returned to around the other team's 35 on a good day anyway. Personally I'd rather kick it in the endzone every time, IF WE HAD THE ABILITY TO. I'd rather just play defense and make the other team start at their 20. I'm not that risky. Last season we had two soccer players as kickers, but neither were all that good and the better one was kicked off the team due to behavior. And our soccer teams are never exactly good. But I definitely understand both sides of the argument. I hope we get it figured out, because I agree
@og charger and I might vomit if special teams gets us beat in the playoffs. But we gotta get healthy and tighten up quickly or this won't be the only loss before the playoffs. Heck anyone can see in the above video that Bell and Whalen were slow due to minor injuries.
By the way, how are you seeing Louisa's film?
