He’s not a great punter but he’s not terrible either. He averaged 36 yap yesterday so that was below average. I’ll say this. He won’t kick in the NFL unless he learns the spiral which is unlikely at this point.
1 Like
My feeling from yesterday during the game was that Navy was going to try to rattle Dane. IIRC the first shanked punt had pressure from one Navy player and he was hit on the next punt. I’ve watched that replay multiple times and believe the play could have been called roughing and also not roughing. The UH player block didn’t appear to knock close him into Dane. Dane should consider drama or acting classes as one of his FA electives.
BTW: it was nice to see our kickoffs landing in the EZ and not being brought out.
3 Likes
Kicking touchbacks on kickoffs is not the goal.
2 Likes
Serious question: What is?
1 Like
Since when? Kick offs rarely pin the opponent inside the 15 yard line unless they are returning from 5 yards deep in the end zone so it would be pretty rare for a special teams coach to not want a kicker to kick it through the end zone every time.
Correct. Same story with kickoffs where coach makes call to kick deep, pooch, squib, etc.
If you have a good kicker this is what you do… https://www.google.com/amp/profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/09/15/bill-belichick-says-short-kickoff-strategy-helped-the-patriots-win/amp/
Pro football special teams and college football special teams two completely different animals. There are 13 players in the NCAA with multiple kick return TDs this year alone. The NFL has had 3 total this year. There are a lot more missed tackles and missed lane assignments in college football. The risk of allowing a game changing TD in college football isn’t worth the chance of making the opponent go 5 to 10 extra yards to score.
With our coverage teams it should be the goal.
Yet this is the reason why teams with good kickers who can get air under it (and kick coverage) will decide to kickoff about to goal line. We did it last two years with decent success as we had lots of experienced starters on kickoff team. I recall causing a fumble to start Louisville game using this approach.
This year is different kicker with less leg and a weaker kickoff coverage team.
1 Like
I was trying to forget that game in its entirety.
Dated but explains philosophy in COLLEGE football landscape.
Our special teams coverage wasn’t special this year. In fact against Memphis we allowed our first kick return for a TD in something like 5 years. We are ranked 71st in the nation this year in yards per kick return allowed.
There are only 32 NFL teams so would expect significantly fewer KR TDs vs FBS where there are >4X teams.
1 Like
55 TDs vs 3 TDs Even if there were twice as many kickoff returns per game in college football, the data still says, you are much more likely to get burned in college football than the NFL by not kicking it in the end zone.
He’s just a sophomore for goodness sakes!