Special Teams still “special”

What punts did you watch?
The place kicking had more to do with a young kicker not getting under the ball quick enough - something he remedied when it mattered.
As to the comment on Thomas - first game jitters and some weird weather messing with game flow.

in other words, calm down Francis.
 
Pressley had 3 punts. Second one he couldn't get a good grip so it wasn't great but he didn't shank it. First one he really boomed, sounded like a cannon shot. Last one was just ok on the first attempt, very good on the second after the penalty with a lot of pressure on him. Reasonable coverage but we got room to improve there, especially on KOR.

Return teams... Yeh was trying to find the opportunity to do something special but FSU had really good coverage on those kicks. They should have been fair caught or he should have taken what was available right away. Smith looked better. But I think the job is Gibbs' when he gets to see the field.

Kicking.... Whoo boy. Kickoffs were pretty good. Not consistently boomed to the EZ like Buttkicker, but that's too much to ask. Coverage needs to improve significantly. On FG. That was on coaching 90%. Collins owned up to it in the post game presser. Said the FG kicking period in practice was the one where we had the most problems with guys in close contact for too long, so we sacrificed a lot of it. Bad blocking and not quick enough to get the ball off the foot of the kicker. Those are very fixable. Kelley had a couple of low kicks but the rest were just fine and he was good in trajectory and showed he has at least decent range. Those were the first kicks for a true freshman who came back and nailed the game winner like there was no pressure on him. I think we'll be fine there, but it was an ugly start.
 
The KO returns clearly did not have a strategy. Should have taken the touchbacks. A kickoff return to the 8 is pretty bad.
 
If we’re gonna focus on the negatives, special teams and penalties should get the attention.

Take the win, focus on the things we did right (which includes special teams when it really mattered), and let the coaching staff and players fix the problems. If they arise again then, and even cost us a game, then we can go nuts.
 
On KOR, Smith’s returns were good. Thomas just didn’t look comfortable.

I would like for us to fair catch one now and then.
 
Harvin is prone to some occasional bad punts. His average still remains very good because he'll follow those up with absolute bombs.
 
Special Teams left 7 points off the board (2 blocked field goals and the blocked XP). They put 4 points on the board (one XP and the winning FG). Since the final score was 16-13 in our favor, it's hard to complain.

But... if we had lost by a point or two; the board would be going nuts about the blocked kicks and rightly so. I don't think anyone disagrees that there is work to be done in this area if we want to compete.
 
Special teams were horrendous most of the game but really seemed to step up when it mattered.

The late FG that put us ahead.

The booming point after the penalty backed us up 5 more yards.

The KO coverage after the made FG.
 
cincyjacket said:
Special Teams left 7 points off the board (2 blocked field goals and the blocked XP). They put 4 points on the board (one XP and the winning FG). Since the final score was 16-13 in our favor, it's hard to complain.

But... if we had lost by a point or two; the board would be going nuts about the blocked kicks and rightly so. I don't think anyone disagrees that there is work to be done in this area if we want to compete.
Click to expand...
Nuanced, rational, and coherent? Did someone hack your account?
 
Harvin frustrates me, because if you watch him warm up, he's killing it just about every time. In games, my impression is that it's kind of a 50/50 crapshoot. That bowl game vs Minnesota really sticks out in my mind - he was drilling amazing punts before the game and at halftime, but during the game they were very disappointing.

Hopefully we'll get the placekicking stuff figured out - we don't have the margin of error to be missing XPs and reasonable FGs. We're lucky FSU is pretty bad, or else those 7 points would have cost us the game. (Just having the XP would have made things a lot more comfortable for the last possession, with a 4 point lead instead of a 3 point lead.)

I was pleased by our kickoff coverage after the go-ahead FG. Usually you can count on us to kick that ball out of bounds or give up a big return in that situation, but we managed to keep it in bounds and pin them deep, which was huge. I do wish we could/would just reliably kick the ball out of the end zone, though.

JRjr
 
cincyjacket said:
Special Teams left 7 points off the board (2 blocked field goals and the blocked XP). They put 4 points on the board (one XP and the winning FG). Since the final score was 16-13 in our favor, it's hard to complain.

But... if we had lost by a point or two; the board would be going nuts about the blocked kicks and rightly so. I don't think anyone disagrees that there is work to be done in this area if we want to compete.
Click to expand...
There is work to be done in EVERY area. We are now 4-9 in the Collins era. This was a welcome but unexpected win. We are playing true freshmen, redshirt freshmen and many other underclassmen. We may have a lot of talent, but it is very young talent. Our cupboard is not bare, but it is inexperienced. If Saturday was indicative of the coaching abilities of Thacker, Coleman, Choice, Key, Patenaude, and others, then there is plenty to be optimistic about.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top