Special Team Performance

AugustaGator

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I’ve read several times our ST is horrible or some other synonym.

can someone help me out here? I see not a game changer but not horrible.
 

Swamp Donkey

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Mehhhh.... like everything else this coaching staff. Not the worst imaginable but a long way to good.

I'm not sure we have a return punt yard on the season.

We certainly can't block anything. These certainly aren't the Meyer years, when teams feared are special teams.
 

AugustaGator

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Mehhhh.... like everything else this coaching staff. Not the worst imaginable but a long way to good.

I'm not sure we have a return punt yard on the season.

We certainly can't block anything. These certainly aren't the Meyer years, when teams feared are special teams.
I'd agree with this assessment. It's not good, but it's also not bad. Probably a little better than the Chump years, but much worse than UM.
 

oxrageous

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I'm trying to think of a single big play that special teams has made the entire season and am coming up empty.

I hope we get a return man worth a crap next year, although if they don't block for him it won't matter.
 

MJMGator

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Solid on punts and kick-offs. Non-existent in the return game and I don’t think we’ve even come close to blocking a kick or a punt.
 

Alumni Guy

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I hope Mrs Townsend is constantly knocked up, so we can have a continual pipeline of her high hangtime punting offspring.

Them boys hit bombs
 

Captain Sasquatch

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People sh*t on Freddie Swain as a punt returner because they’re morons who know about as much about football as Law does about not being stoned and drunk 24/7.

The blocking on punt returns is bad. It wouldn't matter if we had Dante Hall back there, you can’t do anything but fair catch when six defenders have you surrounded two yards away.

Kickoff return team is whatever because everyone just kicks the ball through the endzone anymore. Kick coverage has been pretty good when Evan decides to kick it short. Punt team has been outstanding.

We rarely block kicks anymore, but that’s pretty standard these days. Kickers are better than ever now and rarely kick it low enough to get blocked. And the spread punt formation has almost completely phased the punt block out of the game all together. They still happen on occasion, but nowhere near as frequently as before.
 

oxrageous

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Swain is a terrible punt returner. Even when he has room, he can't do anything with it. It's just not his thing.
 

FireFoley

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People sh*t on Freddie Swain as a punt returner because they’re morons who know about as much about football as Law does about not being stoned and drunk 24/7.

The blocking on punt returns is bad. It wouldn't matter if we had Dante Hall back there, you can’t do anything but fair catch when six defenders have you surrounded two yards away.

Kickoff return team is whatever because everyone just kicks the ball through the endzone anymore. Kick coverage has been pretty good when Evan decides to kick it short. Punt team has been outstanding.

We rarely block kicks anymore, but that’s pretty standard these days. Kickers are better than ever now and rarely kick it low enough to get blocked. And the spread punt formation has almost completely phased the punt block out of the game all together. They still happen on occasion, but nowhere near as frequently as before.

This was generally about what I was going to say.

1.We have good enough kickers
2. Punt coverage is good, Kickoff coverage is so so,but not many kicks get returned so you don;t notice it often.
3. Our kickoff return stinks b/c Cleve and Swain are not good at it. but we don;t return enough to really notice. Toney should be back there.
4. Swain does exactly what he is supposed to do as our punt returner. CATCH THE BALL. You can't have a return if you don;t catch the ball. He has not fumbled one yet and I don;t want him to start now. Is he a good returner when trying to return a kick? Not really, but the return team schemes are lacking. Keeping catching it Freddie and that is all that matters, especially running up and fair catching the short punts to save hidden yardage.
5. Blocking kicks or trying to block kicks is not in our playbook.

So generally speaking we are not going to win a game with special teams. So that being the case, lets not let special teams lose us a game.
 

SGG

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It's neither good, nor bad, it's average.

Mel Gray couldn't return punts or kicks with the way our special teams return blocking is, the one bright spot being that I can't remember Swain muffing a punt return so far this year, so there's that.
 

Captain Sasquatch

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Swain is a terrible punt returner. Even when he has room, he can't do anything with it. It's just not his thing.
Based on what? The one opportunity he has to actually return one during a game? People seem to forget he has our last punt return for a touchdown. And as FireFoley said, he’s rock solid fielding the punts and knowing when not to take risks at trying to catch a punt that’s too far away to catch.
 

diehardg8r

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We aren't special at anything. We are above avg in most areas but not great at any and ST is well below avg. But having said that they way the rules have dumbed it down its difficult to do anything on special teams without getting a penalty. Blindside blocks and targeting penalties and a general dislike for anything that looks like a "bad" hit which is where most happen, ST.
 

Swamp Donkey

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People sh*t on Freddie Swain as a punt returner because they’re morons who know about as much about football as Law does about not being stoned and drunk 24/7.
if only I could give you three likes for this.

The blocking on punt returns is bad. It wouldn't matter if we had Dante Hall back there, you can’t do anything but fair catch when six defenders have you surrounded two yards away.
uhhhhh.... all we do is fair catch anyway. we don't seem to either punt block or return worth a ****. Ohio state was still getting block concert until Urban retired.

Kickoff return team is whatever because everyone just kicks the ball through the endzone anymore.
Agreed on all of that paragraph.

We rarely block kicks anymore, but that’s pretty standard these days. Kickers are better than ever now and rarely kick it low enough to get blocked.
I agree with this completely.

Remember when we had Ingle Martin punting and we were lucky to get a 35-yard punt?
 

TheDouglas78

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average, they would get a C or C+ if it was a course. Nothing special, but isn't going to lose the game for you. Which is an upgrade over the last jabornie who was Head Coach here.
 

BMF

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The biggest ST's play was either TT's fake punt against Miami (then he failed on his next attempt - which was a total head scratcher) - or - the fumbled punt by Auburn that we recovered.
 

Gatorraid81

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I'm trying to think of a single big play that special teams has made the entire season and am coming up empty.

I hope we get a return man worth a crap next year, although if they don't block for him it won't matter.

Converted a successful fake punt on Scum on our 1st drive of the season. That’s about it.
 

bayou gator

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We have one...? Really?

In all seriousness, after he spent so many years with Urban, I am surprised that Dan doesn't put more emphasis on trying to get big plays out of the ST unit. I get that the new rules have changed the kickoff part of the game significantly, but we don't appear to really even try to get anything from the punt/return team other than a safe and successful change of possession. Urban understood that big plays on ST could not only change the momentum of the game, but be the ultimate deciding factor. A huge play from those guys could've been the difference in our losses to LSUx and ugay.

I guess a ho-hum, play it safe, approach to that aspect of the game shouldn't really surprise anyone, since it fits in line with Dan's tendencies.
 

AugustaGator

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CUM used staters and gave special prizes for successful performance, no?
 

TN G8tr

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Love seeing some of the starters in there for the ST's. Biggest play that I can remember is the Van Jefferson fumble recovery against 'Barn.
 

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