Any idea how much our place kickers going full retard affects these numbers?
It did have some effect. We are 127 on FG ranking this year; we were 16 last year.
Kick off return was much better last year; didn't Thomas run 2 back for TDs.
Kick off coverage was even worse last year. Both years are bad; the two USF TDs in 2018 I'm sure make the difference.
Punt coverage is much worse from a ranking POV in 2019. We have had a bad game and let too many long returns this year but some of it is due to the fact that we punt a lot more than we used it. More opportunities for the other team to return kicks so I doubt it was that we were very good at covering kicks last year, we just didn't have to do it much.
Also, just for comparison sake, we were ranked 124 in 2017 but had good rankings in 2016 & 2015. There seems to be a lot of variance in these numbers so I expect a few bad mistakes make a big difference.