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Special Teams - Substantive discussion

ChrisL68 said:
Why are we so hesitant to sky kick? I bet if you look at the average field position we give up on these plays, it isn't much worse than the 25 yard line.
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This should have been SOP after the Louisville game for the remainder of the season. Simple and best solution. Didn't take a rocket scientist to see the problem. One time too many times Clawson said, " We'll go back and look at the tapes and make corrections." The "correction" was as plain as the nose on your face. Sky kick and force fair catch between the 35 & 25. Really can't believe he didn't do this after the 1st td return by Duke. Have to call it what it is: just plain stupid.
 
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WF is 126th out of 130 in kickoff coverage as measured by average return (27.22 yards per KO return -- hard to believe that there could be 4 teams worse), but of that 4 teams that are worse, three have by far more touchbacks. WF has allowed 5 kickoff returns of 50 or more yards which is the worst in the country.

WF has only 16 touchbacks, which is 95th; WF has had 71 kickoffs which is 22nd most in FBS; WF is 112th in touchback percentage.

Other special teams stats for WF (out of 130):

- Net punting #43
- Punt return average #75
- Kickoff return average #85
- 100 of 130 NCAA teams have blocked a kick or a punt this year, WF is one of 30 that has not blocked a kick
- WF is one of 34 teams that has not allowed a kick to be blocked
- WF leads the nation in FG%
 
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netflixnchildres said:
One crazy thing I see is our coverage team engages the other team's blockers, rather than full sprinting to the guy with the ball and getting around blocking. It should be hard to block on kickoffs and we make it easy.
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I watched the two kickoffs on the condensed replay and noticed the same thing. I didn’t play high school football and don’t know anything about kick coverage schemes, but their fast returner was going about 22mph (according to Cutcliffe) at the 20 while our guys were looking for a blocker to hit. When our focus got on the returner, it was too late. Our guys took bad angles because he was flying past them at high speed and he wasn’t touched on either return. If we are this bad, we need to keep a couple of safeties back to protect against a TD return. The sky kick looks like our only option for Syracuse. Lineburg is a good Va area recruiter so it would hurt to lose him over this crap. Shier was a good recruiter as well. Btw, did he land on his feet?
 
Scheier is a senior special teams consultant, whatever that is, for MSU - they also have a Special Teams Coordinator

he still apparently lives in the area as he has a daughter playing hoop for West Forsyth
 
wfu22fan said:
I watched the two kickoffs on the condensed replay and noticed the same thing. I didn’t play high school football and don’t know anything about kick coverage schemes, but their fast returner was going about 22mph (according to Cutcliffe) at the 20 while our guys were looking for a blocker to hit. When our focus got on the returner, it was too late. Our guys took bad angles because he was flying past them at high speed and he wasn’t touched on either return. If we are this bad, we need to keep a couple of safeties back to protect against a TD return. The sky kick looks like our only option for Syracuse. Lineburg is a good Va area recruiter so it would hurt to lose him over this crap. Shier was a good recruiter as well. Btw, did he land on his feet?
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Surely we have the coaching budget to allow us to go hire a ST guru from some smaller school similar to Clawson's background like a Bowling Green, Miami-Oh, etc. who could only upgrade our current situation???
 
Two years ago Schier was a consultant at tOSU. Last year he was ST coach at Texas Tech. Daughter at West is a freshman. Her older sister won state championship for West last year and is now at High Point U. Both are gym rats and are great 3 point shooters.
 
Santucci still with us?!

Edit: Agree that with only two games left Clawson may wait this out until season's end.
 
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In 2018 the staff invested a scholarship in a post-grad to handle kickoffs. He reached the endzone at a reasonably good rate if I remember correctly. After the Louisville game I started wondering if the staff regretted not going the post-grad route in 2019 as well.
 
Rules question here. Could the coaching staff recruit someone whose four year eligibility as a soccer player has run out to play one year as a football grad transfer?
 
Special teams aren't all the same thing. There are different skill sets required for the different special teams.

From simplest to most complex, I would put them:

Place kicking - PATs and Field Goals. Kicking team simply has to block 11 with 9.
Place kicking defense. Try to block the kick, with 11 rushing against 9 blockers.

Kickoff return. Open field blocking, on the move. All one on one blocking, as the wedge is no longer legal. Try to create a lane for the kick returner.
Kickoff coverage. Open field tackling, avoiding the blockers. Lane and area responsibility for each player.

On-side kick. (kicking and receiving) All about the hands. Guys who are used to handling the football and can grab it and hang on.

Punting. First, protect the punter against the rush. Then, get downfield to tackle the returner. Combination of strong line blocking and speed downfield with open field tackling.
Punt rush/block attempt/return. Rush the punter, to at least make the punter hurry, if not to try and block the punt. Then, fall back and block for the returner.

Lots of different kinds of skill sets for the different special teams plays. Hence, the different coaches responsible for particular types of special teams plays. Lineburg coordinates this, presumably from the standpoint of making sure of practice time and player availability.

Special Teams Analyst is a real young guy with only two years as grad assistant as his "coaching experience." This might be another place where a change is made. That position might warrant someone with previous experience in managing special teams.
 
Deac94 said:
In 2018 the staff invested a scholarship in a post-grad to handle kickoffs. He reached the endzone at a reasonably good rate if I remember correctly. After the Louisville game I started wondering if the staff regretted not going the post-grad route in 2019 as well.
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I looked it up. In 2018 Wake used two kickers to handle kickoffs. In total, Darren Ford and Eric Osteen had 40% (33 of 83) kickoffs go for touch backs. Of all the kickoffs, 55% (46 of 83) where returned. More telling, Wake gave up 1097 return yards, an average of 24 yards per return. Wake ranked second from the bottom last year in the ACC in total yardage surrendered on kickoff returns and fourth from the bottom in yards per return.

This year, Wake has had 44% returned (31 kickoffs out of 71 returned) and the average return yardage per return is 27 yards. If you take out the two returns for touchdowns the other night, the yards per return is 23 yards, which is basically the same as last year. So, while the return percentage is up, the yards per return is basically the same (excluding the two kickoffs for touchdowns against Duke). The touch back percentage is down this year at 23% (16 of 71 kickoffs), but returns are down as well. I believe the return teams have called more fair catches this year which would indicate they are fair catching the ball more and returning the ball less.

For the kickoffs on Saturday night, the first kick (kicker was Murphy, not Sciba) was only returned 13 or 14 yards (kicked to the 4 yard line with good height). On this kickoff, the coverage team got off their blocks to make the tackle and it appeared to be well covered when I went back and watched the game. In the two kickoffs returned for touchdowns, the kickoffs seemed to be just as high and went even further (to the two yard line), but the coverage team (as pointed out by others earlier) did not get off their blocks and the Duke returner was untouched on both returns - he did not even have to slow down. I think the issue had less to do with the kicker and more to do with coverage guys who did not get off their blocks. If the coverage team handles the blocks like they did on the first kickoff, I doubt either kickoff gets returned for big yardage.
 
Kick it through the endzone or OB as a last resort.

Problem solved. :thumbsup:
 
Removing the ? mark, Deaconblue and BicycleDeac bringing the substance. Thanks, and welcome to the boards BicycleDeac.

Ph, great question? Any fans play D1 sports that could come out of the crowd with that extra year of eligibility? Just need to afford a semester of Wake’s tuition.
 
Why would a kid that has spent the last 15 years or so dribbling, passing, and shooting a soccer ball be able to kick a football further than a kid that has spent the last 5 years or so kicking a football as far as they can?
 
Clawson said today the special teams problems were all his fault for playing too many freshmen. Love how he takes responsibility just wish our doofus basketball coach would do the same.
 
Deac94 said:
In 2018 the staff invested a scholarship in a post-grad to handle kickoffs. He reached the endzone at a reasonably good rate if I remember correctly. After the Louisville game I started wondering if the staff regretted not going the post-grad route in 2019 as well.
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they actually brought in two grad transfer kickoff specialists

can't imagine that has ever happened before

Osteen was 28 years old last year, btw
 
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JuiceCrewAllStar said:
they actually brought in two grad transfer kickoff specialists

can't imagine that has ever happened before

Osteen was 28 years old last year, btw
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It's kind of semantics, but Osteen more fell into their lap. They went out and got Darren Ford. Osteen walked into the football office and basically said "hey I was at Army and in the Army and I think I have a year of eligibility left, you guys need a kicker?"
 
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