More Emphasis on Special Teams?

Salsa · Post by **Salsa** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 11:06 am

We've offered grants to both a kicker (Ellis) and a punter (Rojas). Does this mean our coaching staff is putting more emphasis on special teams? I hope so. I think it's unusual to use two grants in the same year for the kicking game. To me, this also indicates that our staff feels we can do this without hurting our recruiting in other areas.

From looking at our verbals so far, it looks like we're attempting to shore up our main weaknesses--special teams and defense. I like that.

transfer2BGSU · Post by **transfer2BGSU** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 11:09 am

vidently we have offered preferred walk-on status to a long-snapper out of Eastwood High School and when I talked to him last Tuesday at the high school, he said he was coming.

Class of 61 · Post by **Class of 61** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 11:33 am

Salsa wrote:We've offered grants to both a kicker (Ellis) and a punter (Rojas). Does this mean our coaching staff is putting more emphasis on special teams? I hope so. I think it's unusual to use two grants in the same year for the kicking game. To me, this also indicates that our staff feels we can do this without hurting our recruiting in other areas.

From looking at our verbals so far, it looks like we're attempting to shore up our main weaknesses--special teams and defense. I like that.

Salsa,
I don't think there was much CHOICE other than to offer scholarships to 2 kickers, considering how weak our kicking game had become last year...and with both our punter AND PK graduating. But, I think you're right in that we seem to be heavily recruiting the defensive side of the ball, which was another area seemingly neglected for awhile.... NOW, can we get a couple of quality WR's to fill out the offense?

San Diego Falcon · Post by **San Diego Falcon** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:10 pm

Thank God the staff recognized what everyone else saw. It all seemed obvious, but it sometimes appeared they were oblivious to the need to commit more to that area.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:17 pm

I don't know if it shows more emphasis. We graduated a PK and a punter who were on scholarship and we're giving scholarships to a punter and a PK.

San Diego Falcon · Post by **San Diego Falcon** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:47 pm

I don't know if it shows more emphasis. We graduated a PK and a punter who were on scholarship and we're giving scholarships to a punter and a PK.

Sorry - my mistake.

I thought I had seen discussions during the season about how we hadn't been committing scholarships to the kicking positions.

Bleeding Orange · Post by **Bleeding Orange** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:56 pm

San Diego Falcon wrote:
I don't know if it shows more emphasis. We graduated a PK and a punter who were on scholarship and we're giving scholarships to a punter and a PK.
Sorry - my mistake. I thought I had seen discussions during the season about how we hadn't been committing scholarships to the kicking positions.

Well, Timchenko was a JUCO, so that may be what you were thinking of.

orangeandbrown · Post by **orangeandbrown** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 10:57 pm

If we use that stupid punt formation--or use it badly--Mr. Rojas won't do much better than Mr. Fry did.

Bleeding Orange · Post by **Bleeding Orange** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 11:29 pm

orangeandbrown wrote:If we use that stupid punt formation--or use it badly--Mr. Rojas won't do much better than Mr. Fry did.

And Mr. Fry did pretty damn good, all things considered. It is unfortunate that a couple of blocks brought about by the punt formation have overshadowed a darn good senior effort from a great Falcon.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:28 am

When it comes to special teams, I'm much more concerned about the rest of the units, believe it or not, than I am the kicker/punter. Yes, it's important to fill those positions adequately as we saw this past year with our kicker. However, we also saw how breakdowns by the other 10 can render a punter almost helpless.

Our Special Teams units were a clinic on playing undisciplined and fundamentally poor. Our coverage units would continually flow to the ball, rather than stay in their lanes, allowing teams to gouge us for big returns on cutbacks. When we did get to the returner we didn't tackle well, but that was an epidemic throughotu the team. Even worse our punt protection was horrendous; be it because of a lousy scheme, lousy execution, or both, the fact is it sucked.

If we cannot cover kicks and protect our punters it won't matter how good our Kicker/Punter are, because our STs will still be awful. The most troublesome thing about this is that I've long felt that STs play is what most exemplifies the quality of your coaching...

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:05 am

Part of the problem on kickoff returns was the accuracy on the placement of the kick. If the ball is supposed to go towards the right hash and it winds up over by the left, you're going to look pretty disorganized.

Jacobs4Heisman · Post by **Jacobs4Heisman** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:20 am

Has anybody heard if we are going to hire a ST coach? Until we have a guy dedicated to overseeing the special teams units, we will continue to struggle. That is, unless Brandon all of a sudden decides that it is an equally important aspect of the game just like offense, and emphasizes it as such to the players and staff.

cowboyjoe · Post by **cowboyjoe** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:11 pm

I just hope we don't put our starting tailback on kick off return...how stupid was that this year with Pope getting hurt "blocking" on a kick off return against Wisconsin?

transfer2BGSU · Post by **transfer2BGSU** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:20 pm

cowboyjoe wrote:I just hope we don't put our starting tailback on kick off return...how stupid was that this year with Pope getting hurt "blocking" on a kick off return against Wisconsin?

You put your best players on the field. Evidently Pope was one of the best special teams players we had going into the Wisconsin game. It's a shame he got hurt, but we were playing to win the game, not just pick up a hefty check.

cowboyjoe · Post by **cowboyjoe** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 10:21 pm

Are you serious? Pope wasn't even the deep back. He was in the second line and was being used to block. Give me a break. You don't put a 1,000 yard rusher in on special teams to block.

More Emphasis on Special Teams?

More Emphasis on Special Teams?

Re: More Emphasis on Special Teams?