ricejacket
Damn Good Rat
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2005
- Messages
- 1,498
By Andy Staples
3h ago
12
Brent Key was pulled out of an offensive game plan meeting on Oct. 4 and told to walk up the hill to Georgia Tech’s athletic administrative offices. When Key, the offensive line coach, got there, he learned head coach Geoff Collins had been fired. Key, a Georgia Tech graduate who started at guard all four years on The Flats, would be the head coach for the remainder of the season.
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As he walked back down the hill toward the football offices, Key, 42, immediately identified his first priority as the head coach of his alma mater. Before Key could even think about Georgia Tech beating an FBS opponent — something that hadn’t happened since a game at Duke nearly a year earlier — he had to fix one glaring issue. So he headed straight for the office of linebackers coach Jason Semore. Semore, known to his friends as Boogie, instantly knew what Key wanted to discuss.
Something had to be done about Georgia Tech’s punt protection.
The Yellow Jackets had four punts blocked in their first four games. A block two days earlier at UCF had been returned for a touchdown and erased a Georgia Tech lead just before halftime. Clemson had blocked two punts in the season opener. Ole Miss had blocked one near the start of a 42-0 blowout.
Of all the things Georgia Tech had done wrong over the course of a 1-3 start, punt protection was the most consistently bad.
But it didn’t have to be. Key determined to change it ahead of a game that Saturday at defending ACC champion Pittsburgh. So Key asked Semore a question that doubled as an assignment: “What’s the best thing we can do in four days to fix this problem?”
“He looked at me like I was crazy,” Key said.
Yet they pulled it off. That Saturday, all of Georgia Tech’s punts got away clean. There were no crushing momentum swings, and the Yellow Jackets stunned Pitt 26-21. The following week against Duke? Six more successful punts. (Though one wasn’t covered particularly well.) Georgia Tech won 23-20 in overtime.
Suddenly, the Yellow Jackets had won consecutive games for the first time since former coach Paul Johnson’s final season in 2018. Did they win those games because Key and Semore reconfigured the punt team? No. But they had a chance to win because Key identified a fatal flaw and Semore managed to fix it on a compressed timetable. With 10 days between the Duke game and Thursday’s visit from Virginia, Key hopes the Yellow Jackets can evolve more.
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The punt team issue is a prime example of what plagued Georgia Tech. While Key and everyone else remain complimentary of Collins, it’s clear finer details were getting missed. The reason Key chose Semore for the task of overhauling that group is that Semore is “a ball coach,” which is one of the highest compliments Key can give someone. “At the end of the day, that’s what we do,” Key said. “A lot of people get caught up so much in everything else that they lose sight of actual football.”
Semore quickly cobbled together a 160-play cut-up of various punt protections to try to determine how to fix Georgia Tech’s. Though Key and Semore didn’t reveal much schematically, the flaws in the old system are easy to spot on video.
The Yellow Jackets had made it incredibly easy for opponents to get to punter David Shanahan. The five blockers on the line of scrimmage were separated by wide splits, and the Yellow Jackets had only two personal protectors between the line of scrimmage and the punter. Opponents could overload one side and then send two rushers through the wide split and one to the outside. This would force a personal protector to make a choice to protect inside or outside. But if one rusher came off the line unblocked and another beat his blocker, the personal protector was guaranteed to be wrong. He’d block one rusher and the other would reach Shanahan.
Georgia Tech was trying to straddle the line between a Shield Punt, which places multiple players between the punter and the line of scrimmage, and the Pro Punt, which usually has one man between the line of scrimmage and the punter who is in charge of setting and changing the protection. The Pro Punt offers more flexibility in coverage, while the Shield offers more security for the punter. It was clear which direction the Yellow Jackets needed to shift.
The Yellow Jackets were living dangerously every time they punted, and the Ole Miss block drove that point home. “They were in punt safe,” Key said. “The d-end blocks a punt. He’s probably never blocked a punt in his life.” Ole Miss had only sent five rushers, but two Georgia Tech blockers had released to cover the kick. A personal protector picked up one of the inside rushers, but that left him occupied when the end man on the left side of the line of scrimmage let his rusher go free. Ole Miss defensive end Cedric Johnson got to Shanahan with so little resistance that it might have been easier to tackle Shanahan than block the kick.
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The problem with changing something as fundamental as punt protection is that teams spend an inordinate amount of offseason time installing it so they don’t have to spend as much of their precious practice time on it in season. “This is something normally people do over a nine-month period of time,” Key remembered thinking. “Offseason. Spring practice. Summertime. Preseason practice. We ain’t got that.” In creating that initial cut-up, Semore scoured different teams’ punt protection schemes looking for the least “expensive” in terms of time required to teach and rules that needed to be remembered by the players.
Semore presented several options, but most were a variation on a three-man shield, which utilized three personal protectors between the punter and the line of scrimmage. Key agreed that would be the easiest to teach in four days, and the coaches plowed ahead.
They did what they could with limited time in meetings and practice and loaded up on walkthroughs. When players might have been in their rooms watching movies on the morning of a night game, they were dodging raindrops in a chilly hotel parking lot pretending to block oncoming rushers. Key had thought about doing the walkthrough inside, but the forecast called for temperatures in the 50s and rain.
He thought of something former boss Nick Saban often said. “He got it from Bill Belichick,” Key said. “If you’re going to fight in the Baltics, you’ve got to train in the Baltics.”
The following day at Pitt, the Yellow Jackets drove for a field goal on their first possession. Their second went three-and-out and left them with fourth-and-11 from their own 36. The punt team lined up for its first kick with seven blockers in the box on the line of scrimmage and three personal protectors between the line and Shanahan. Semore, well aware that Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi likes to be aggressive on special teams, expected the Panthers to come screaming after the kick. He inhaled deep and waited.
But before the ball could be snapped, a whistle blew. Officials wanted to check for targeting on the tackle on the previous play. After the review found no targeting, the Yellow Jackets lined up again. Semore looked out on the field again and sucked in another breath. “They’re 10-up,” Semore said. “And sure enough, they brought the house.”
But the rushers slammed into blockers, and Shanahan got the punt away clean. “Oh, thank God,” Semore remembered saying to himself. Meanwhile, Semore and Key shifted to a new concern. “Me and Boogie were together fretting and scared to death,” he said. “There was so much time spent on the protection part and not the coverage.”
The Yellow Jackets covered well against Pittsburgh. Against Duke, they allowed Sahmir Hagans to return a punt 81 yards for a touchdown to help the Blue Devils claw their way back and force overtime. But Georgia Tech only had so much time. Semore has had more since that game to clean up coverage issues.
3h ago
12
Brent Key was pulled out of an offensive game plan meeting on Oct. 4 and told to walk up the hill to Georgia Tech’s athletic administrative offices. When Key, the offensive line coach, got there, he learned head coach Geoff Collins had been fired. Key, a Georgia Tech graduate who started at guard all four years on The Flats, would be the head coach for the remainder of the season.
ADVERTISEMENT
As he walked back down the hill toward the football offices, Key, 42, immediately identified his first priority as the head coach of his alma mater. Before Key could even think about Georgia Tech beating an FBS opponent — something that hadn’t happened since a game at Duke nearly a year earlier — he had to fix one glaring issue. So he headed straight for the office of linebackers coach Jason Semore. Semore, known to his friends as Boogie, instantly knew what Key wanted to discuss.
Something had to be done about Georgia Tech’s punt protection.
The Yellow Jackets had four punts blocked in their first four games. A block two days earlier at UCF had been returned for a touchdown and erased a Georgia Tech lead just before halftime. Clemson had blocked two punts in the season opener. Ole Miss had blocked one near the start of a 42-0 blowout.
Of all the things Georgia Tech had done wrong over the course of a 1-3 start, punt protection was the most consistently bad.
But it didn’t have to be. Key determined to change it ahead of a game that Saturday at defending ACC champion Pittsburgh. So Key asked Semore a question that doubled as an assignment: “What’s the best thing we can do in four days to fix this problem?”
“He looked at me like I was crazy,” Key said.
Yet they pulled it off. That Saturday, all of Georgia Tech’s punts got away clean. There were no crushing momentum swings, and the Yellow Jackets stunned Pitt 26-21. The following week against Duke? Six more successful punts. (Though one wasn’t covered particularly well.) Georgia Tech won 23-20 in overtime.
Suddenly, the Yellow Jackets had won consecutive games for the first time since former coach Paul Johnson’s final season in 2018. Did they win those games because Key and Semore reconfigured the punt team? No. But they had a chance to win because Key identified a fatal flaw and Semore managed to fix it on a compressed timetable. With 10 days between the Duke game and Thursday’s visit from Virginia, Key hopes the Yellow Jackets can evolve more.
ADVERTISEMENT
The punt team issue is a prime example of what plagued Georgia Tech. While Key and everyone else remain complimentary of Collins, it’s clear finer details were getting missed. The reason Key chose Semore for the task of overhauling that group is that Semore is “a ball coach,” which is one of the highest compliments Key can give someone. “At the end of the day, that’s what we do,” Key said. “A lot of people get caught up so much in everything else that they lose sight of actual football.”
Semore quickly cobbled together a 160-play cut-up of various punt protections to try to determine how to fix Georgia Tech’s. Though Key and Semore didn’t reveal much schematically, the flaws in the old system are easy to spot on video.
The Yellow Jackets had made it incredibly easy for opponents to get to punter David Shanahan. The five blockers on the line of scrimmage were separated by wide splits, and the Yellow Jackets had only two personal protectors between the line of scrimmage and the punter. Opponents could overload one side and then send two rushers through the wide split and one to the outside. This would force a personal protector to make a choice to protect inside or outside. But if one rusher came off the line unblocked and another beat his blocker, the personal protector was guaranteed to be wrong. He’d block one rusher and the other would reach Shanahan.
Georgia Tech was trying to straddle the line between a Shield Punt, which places multiple players between the punter and the line of scrimmage, and the Pro Punt, which usually has one man between the line of scrimmage and the punter who is in charge of setting and changing the protection. The Pro Punt offers more flexibility in coverage, while the Shield offers more security for the punter. It was clear which direction the Yellow Jackets needed to shift.
The Yellow Jackets were living dangerously every time they punted, and the Ole Miss block drove that point home. “They were in punt safe,” Key said. “The d-end blocks a punt. He’s probably never blocked a punt in his life.” Ole Miss had only sent five rushers, but two Georgia Tech blockers had released to cover the kick. A personal protector picked up one of the inside rushers, but that left him occupied when the end man on the left side of the line of scrimmage let his rusher go free. Ole Miss defensive end Cedric Johnson got to Shanahan with so little resistance that it might have been easier to tackle Shanahan than block the kick.
ADVERTISEMENT
The problem with changing something as fundamental as punt protection is that teams spend an inordinate amount of offseason time installing it so they don’t have to spend as much of their precious practice time on it in season. “This is something normally people do over a nine-month period of time,” Key remembered thinking. “Offseason. Spring practice. Summertime. Preseason practice. We ain’t got that.” In creating that initial cut-up, Semore scoured different teams’ punt protection schemes looking for the least “expensive” in terms of time required to teach and rules that needed to be remembered by the players.
Semore presented several options, but most were a variation on a three-man shield, which utilized three personal protectors between the punter and the line of scrimmage. Key agreed that would be the easiest to teach in four days, and the coaches plowed ahead.
They did what they could with limited time in meetings and practice and loaded up on walkthroughs. When players might have been in their rooms watching movies on the morning of a night game, they were dodging raindrops in a chilly hotel parking lot pretending to block oncoming rushers. Key had thought about doing the walkthrough inside, but the forecast called for temperatures in the 50s and rain.
He thought of something former boss Nick Saban often said. “He got it from Bill Belichick,” Key said. “If you’re going to fight in the Baltics, you’ve got to train in the Baltics.”
The following day at Pitt, the Yellow Jackets drove for a field goal on their first possession. Their second went three-and-out and left them with fourth-and-11 from their own 36. The punt team lined up for its first kick with seven blockers in the box on the line of scrimmage and three personal protectors between the line and Shanahan. Semore, well aware that Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi likes to be aggressive on special teams, expected the Panthers to come screaming after the kick. He inhaled deep and waited.
But before the ball could be snapped, a whistle blew. Officials wanted to check for targeting on the tackle on the previous play. After the review found no targeting, the Yellow Jackets lined up again. Semore looked out on the field again and sucked in another breath. “They’re 10-up,” Semore said. “And sure enough, they brought the house.”
But the rushers slammed into blockers, and Shanahan got the punt away clean. “Oh, thank God,” Semore remembered saying to himself. Meanwhile, Semore and Key shifted to a new concern. “Me and Boogie were together fretting and scared to death,” he said. “There was so much time spent on the protection part and not the coverage.”
The Yellow Jackets covered well against Pittsburgh. Against Duke, they allowed Sahmir Hagans to return a punt 81 yards for a touchdown to help the Blue Devils claw their way back and force overtime. But Georgia Tech only had so much time. Semore has had more since that game to clean up coverage issues.
