Fo Fiddy

[QMany]

The media needs to stop tip-toeing around the issue or acting like what happened this weekend was an isolated incident. It has been happening over and over the entire year. I get it, Mike Riley is a nice guy. But he needs to be challenged on special teams miscues and the production of our dedicated special teams coach (who doesn't recruit).

[Saunders]

We have arguably one of the best returners in the country... and we don't even give him a chance to return punts.

 

That in and of itself is all the evidence we need.

[Count 'Bility]

he canned a dline coach after one year, went after a legacy who was actually experienced in coaching the position at the college level (unlike some of the stupid ass needs of some who want jason peter or Grant wistrom or whoever the hell else from the 90's to coach just 'cuz) who is appearing to, thus far, be making hay. Im fully convinced Riley will be going a different direction with this guy. He's well thought out. I will not believe Read will not be let go until I see it not happening.

[Mavric]

 

 

It's been a long time. i dont even know if it's ever happened. That we've had one particular guy in charge of special teams exclusively. Seems to me that with this has come with an inordinate amount of overthinking, from the stupid little charade we do before extra points (someone could explain why the hell it's called a swinging gate, kthnxby) to all these nuances being discussed about the punt return issues, to the constant substituion penalties. For a while our opponent couldnt kick an extra point without us jumping offsides for whatever reason. I think that with this one guy, there's too much prep time. Too much focus on trying to find an advantage here and there, that focus is lost on just executing the simple basics that make special teams successful. Staying in lanes on covering kicks. It's not rocket science. Put athletes on the field. Stay in lanes. Make tackles. On punt return, perfect the bare basics. Either play for the fake, or play for the return. it's situational. Where int he past with a coach that had other responsibilities (or 3 like Els-ST, LB, RC) there's ONLY enough time to make sure you fine tune the simple basics.

This is where I'm at as well. It's entirely possible that we're too sensitive to every mistake because of having a dedicated guy making a lot of money. But the other side of that coin is it seems like we should be decently above average if we're making that kind of investment. Especially when we have an All-American punt returner and a pretty good kicker to work with. But we seem to be below average in too many areas, not the least of which is organization.

 

It's not justifying having one guy who only does that and barely recruits. Not trying to diminish the role of special teams but it is "only" 15-20 plays per game. We could have a guy who is coaching a position that is on the field for 80 or so plays per game and recruiting 3-4 guys per year instead of 1.

 

 

i got in a debate with Mckewon on twitter last week about the notion that he also thinks fans are a little over sensitive to the mistakes bein made cuz his salary is in a bright light. I call bullsh#t. Mckewon's self riteousness of pointing out the obvious of what everyone already knows irks me a little. but to say ppl are just dissatisfied with Read cuz of his salary and that it's really not that bad was a total insult to people who know football, who are able to see the real problems. EVERY SINGLE GAME there's something as a result of total lack of preparation. He could be making 50,000 right now, and this fanbase would still be pissed cuz most of us know football. We can see the ridiculous time spent on some crapshot extra point, waste of time, gimmick, but yet in game 11, we STILL cant get 11 guys on the field. Sub penalty keeps us from getting off the field to start Minny game, allowing them to continue drive for a game opening TD. A problem that's been there week in week out. And like i said to Mckewon, we're at a point that mind games and pure incompetence has just spread throughout all ST personnel. negative punts. letting guys come clean on field goals to block it. it's a mental block now. No wonder we went for it on 4th inside the 15 against minny when a short fg gives us the lead. Riley sees what's going on. There's no trust in anything special teams right now.

 

The whole unit across the board is an insult to pure football right now. The salary is completely irrelevant.

 

"Junior high stuff"

 

Exactly Coach Riley. Exactly.

 

I still pretty much agree with you. My only point was I think the mistakes get magnified because of that. Not saying it isn't deserved, just that they get magnified maybe a little more than they should. For example, it really does seem like the 12-men penalty against Minny wasn't really Reed's fault. But he gets the blame because of all the other screw ups. And it's Riley's call when to keep the defense out on the field instead of the punt return unit which has been part of the reason we haven't had many chances for a return.

 

I'm not trying to get Reed off the hook. I don't think we're getting much return on that investment (no pun intended). But I also think there are parts of why the special teams have been poor that aren't directly Reed's fault. He's responsible for most of it, just not all of it.

[lo country]

The media needs to stop tip-toeing around the issue or acting like what happened this weekend was an isolated incident. It has been happening over and over the entire year. I get it, Mike Riley is a nice guy. But he needs to be challenged on special teams miscues and the production of our dedicated special teams coach (who doesn't recruit).

Its gone on game after game. After Oregon, Helfrich was asked why he went for 2. To paraphrase, they looked so confused after our TD, I figurd go for 2....

 

Our ST play is below average at best. Better play could have possibly beat Wisky and could cost us Iowa. Their special teams are playing pretty well.... Ours, not so much...

A dedicated return game could mean a W or L on Friday.

 

 

 

[Saunders]

 

 

The media needs to stop tip-toeing around the issue or acting like what happened this weekend was an isolated incident. It has been happening over and over the entire year. I get it, Mike Riley is a nice guy. But he needs to be challenged on special teams miscues and the production of our dedicated special teams coach (who doesn't recruit).

Its gone on game after game. After Oregon, Helfrich was asked why he went for 2. To paraphrase, they looked so confused after our TD, I figurd go for 2....

 

Our ST play is below average at best. Better play could have possibly beat Wisky and could cost us Iowa. Their special teams are playing pretty well.... Ours, not so much...

A dedicated return game could mean a W or L on Friday.

 

 

Agreed. Hell, special teams won us the game in 2014.

[84HuskerLaw]

Poor punt return strategy is not new to just the past couple years. A few years back we had the top 'fair catcher' in the country (I forget his name right now but recall he was the Illinois high school player of the year when we recruited him. Giving up first downs when the opponent converts a fake punt is very frustrating but over playing to prevent that to the point of never having a shot at punt returns is not good either.

 

We have a bunch of good receivers this year who can catch the ball. Put a second guy back to field the punts that are hard to field and or to protect and block somebody when we do catch the ball. We need to be aggressive in punt return game instead of always fair catching it. If we don't intend to return the punt, then you should call all out block attempts sometimes to keep the punt play honest by the opponent as well.

 

You need to go for two on those 'swinging gate' (name ???) extra point alignments now and then or they look nonsensical. I am more afraid we'll get a penalty for illegal formation or motion or time delay or something.

[HuskerNBigD]

Poor punt return strategy is not new to just the past couple years. A few years back we had the top 'fair catcher' in the country (I forget his name right now but recall he was the Illinois high school player of the year when we recruited him. Giving up first downs when the opponent converts a fake punt is very frustrating but over playing to prevent that to the point of never having a shot at punt returns is not good either.

 

We have a bunch of good receivers this year who can catch the ball. Put a second guy back to field the punts that are hard to field and or to protect and block somebody when we do catch the ball. We need to be aggressive in punt return game instead of always fair catching it. If we don't intend to return the punt, then you should call all out block attempts sometimes to keep the punt play honest by the opponent as well.

 

You need to go for two on those 'swinging gate' (name ???) extra point alignments now and then or they look nonsensical. I am more afraid we'll get a penalty for illegal formation or motion or time delay or something.

 

You mean Westerkamp?

[QMany]

Poor punt return strategy is not new to just the past couple years. A few years back we had the top 'fair catcher' in the country (I forget his name right now but recall he was the Illinois high school player of the year when we recruited him.

Jordan Westerkamp, WR #1, still on the team.

 

Bo's team struggled with punt return for a season or two. ST tasks were divided up between position coaches, if I remember correctly, and they improved when Bo finally took over himself. Bo's last year is when DPE went bananas and was the best PR in the land.

[VectorVictor]

 

Nobody hasn't mentioned this yet but we had 10 players where Maryland converted on the fake punt.

 

I saw it from the stands too before the play developed (when I officiate high school football I'm in charge of counting the defensive players)

 

- blocked field goal

- 10 players on fake punt

The fact that they don't coach DPE to count players prior to snap is beyond me. Or the fact that no one is counting themselves? I mean, I am not an official, but I'm counting from the stands...

 

Also, going back a few weeks to OSU game when Bryant returned a ball close to the boundary. The fact that he wasn't coached that if he were to catch that out of bounds, that's a penalty against the kicking team. I know that sort of thing rarely happens, but there aren't too many rules for returners to need to know right? That to me seems like one to mention. Bryant looked like it was never mentioned.

 

I don't know. It's the 11th game of the season, and we had 10 guys on the field twice on special teams. 12 guys the week before on the 10th game of the season.

 

The fact that I have to mention these things as a fan in preparation of the last week of the regular season is troublesome. We are incredibly lucky that these things haven't cost us a game (yet).

 

 

One could argue Special Teams gaffes have already cost us in Wisky...

[RunMickeyRun02]

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way but it seems like we're way worse THIS year than we were LAST year. I was surprised to learn we had the same ST guy as last year as it just looks so night/day to me. Yes I know Foltz is gone but that's only part of it. IIRC DPE had some game changing returns last year despite being hurt most of the season and I don't recall any silly swinging gate stuff last year either.

 

Perhaps it's perception and I looked past special teams because we were losing so many games....

 

I don't get it. I don't claim to know as much about special teams as some of the folks on this thread, but I know enough to know something is wrong. Sip ended his article about Fyfe by calling HCMR's response to ST questions as "terse" I watched the press conference and I didn't really see much to support that.

 

TO would often say without hesitation that ST is worth between 7 and 14 points a game and I truly believe that. Frank Beamer made it so prevalent that it became part of his schools brand "Beamer ball" but he had to coach ST himself. I too am surprised ST hasn't cost us a loss yet this season.

 

I do find the naming "fo fifty" thing interesting as others have voiced concerns about Banker and Langs esp. play calling but haven't come up with creative nick names for them. Maybe it's a testament to just how bad things are. So bad for so long nicknames come into play.

[Count 'Bility]

Special teams is a funny dynamic. it's not something that you need to be overly successful to win games. Obviously its the 3rd of 3 phases for a reason. Offense and defense are more important. hell, this season is a testament to that very fact. As bad as it's been, we're still 9-2, and our losses cant be blamed on special teams. But, if you fail to execute what are very simple and fundamental basics within special teams (things we have NOT been able to do consistently all year) it can certainly lose you a game regardless how sound you are in other phases.

 

Just execute the basics. Get rid of the damn circus on extra points. make sure there's 11 guys on the field. Block everyone trying to block your field goal attempts. Quit jumpin offsides on extra points-youre not gonna block it anyway unless the kicker kicks it low- and for the love of christ, maybe, just maybe, try blocking a few guys for your dynamic returner. Basics.

[ScottyIce]

I am heavily, heavily surprised that we have not lost a game due to sh#t special teams play. We certainly have given up too many unnecessary touchdowns due to horrible special team play, cue the Minnesota game.I hate having to be scared every time we return a punt for DPE to muff it due to poor coverage. I am a huge MR supporter, but keeping Read after we have placed last in many ST categories is inexcusable

 

I could be incorrect, but here are the reasons we haven't.

 

At most, our ST have cost us a few FG's being blocked.

They haven't allowed and KR TD's, or PR TD's. Also, our KR or PR's haven't fumbled any returns.

 

I'm not excusing Read, he has been terrible.

 

Just explaining why they haven't cost us games thus far.

[RunMickeyRun02]

Special teams is a funny dynamic. it's not something that you need to be overly successful to win games. Obviously its the 3rd of 3 phases for a reason. Offense and defense are more important. hell, this season is a testament to that very fact. As bad as it's been, we're still 9-2, and our losses cant be blamed on special teams. But, if you fail to execute what are very simple and fundamental basics within special teams (things we have NOT been able to do consistently all year) it can certainly lose you a game regardless how sound you are in other phases.

 

Just execute the basics. Get rid of the damn circus on extra points. make sure there's 11 guys on the field. Block everyone trying to block your field goal attempts. Quit jumpin offsides on extra points-youre not gonna block it anyway unless the kicker kicks it low- and for the love of christ, maybe, just maybe, try blocking a few guys for your dynamic returner. Basics.

It doesn't get much more basic than counting does it?

[Count 'Bility]

Substitution issues can happen. But we're good for multiple ones a game. Always on special teams.. The whole system is just a mess of disorganization. i dont care if Riley completely absolved Read of the 12 man penalty on the first drive against Minnesota. The fact is our defense got off the field to open the game, our punt return team comes out-or defense, or whatever the hell it is-and gets a penalty to prolong the game opening drive into a TD for our opponent and allowed them to set the tone. The point is that anything special teams right now seems like a blunder.