Fair Catches on Kickoffs

Guy Chamberlin

Guy Chamberlin

Heisman Trophy Winner
At this point, the last decade of blowout losses are blurring together.

But this struck me as the worst Husker performance I've seen in my lifetime. Offense. Defense. Special Teams. Coaching. The most basic fundamentals of the game.

The cherry on the s#!t sundae was calling for fair catches on kickoffs. Multiple times. Even short kicks caught in the field of play. By our most exciting player. 

I've never seen that before. It looked like total surrender to me. 

 
From Mavric's fair catch kick off rule:   Brian Rosenthal's tweet (sorry couldn't figure out how to cross thread quote)

Frost said he doesn’t like seeing rules changes to football, that he’s traditionalist, but he also says the safety and health of student athletes is No. 1 priority. He was talking specifically referring to fair catch rule on kickoffs. #Huskers

12:33 PM - 23 Jul 2018

 
Why? You automatically get the ball at the 25 if you fair catch it. Seems like a reasonable approach to exploiting the rules, especially if you don't think you can make it out to the 25.

 
I just posted Friday night while watching a game that I was surprised at how few fair catches I've seen.  The percentage of returns outside the 25 is pretty low.  Yes, there's always the chance to break a big one but there's also the chance of getting a penalty and starting inside your 10.

So I really didn't have a lot of problem with the fair catches.  The only one I really thought he should have tried to return was the one he caught at about the 10.  I thought that one was probably worth a shot.

 
Mavric said:
I just posted Friday night while watching a game that I was surprised at how few fair catches I've seen.  The percentage of returns outside the 25 is pretty low.  Yes, there's always the chance to break a big one but there's also the chance of getting a penalty and starting inside your 10.

So I really didn't have a lot of problem with the fair catches.  The only one I really thought he should have tried to return was the one he caught at about the 10.  I thought that one was probably worth a shot.
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I’ve noticed this too. It’s surprising the number of times that returners don’t signal for a fair catch. 

 
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Until we can actually do something on special teams, I do not mind automatically starting from the 25.  IMHO, we are broke right now and I'll take all the easy help we can get....Disappointed it has come to this. (Per tweet above, it is also safer to protect our kids)

 
Ya, I’m not sure I’ve seen ANYTHING from the boys back there fielding punts and kickoffs that leads me to believe they currently possess the proper judgement to be responsible for deciding if a return attempt would be a wise decision or not. I also haven’t seen anything to make me think there is any chance if magic happening out of said athletes. As such, let start small and just concentrate on making smart fair catches, catching said fair catches, and letting things that hit inside the 5 bounce. 

 
I'm fairly sure the referees have been told by their bosses to throw a penalty flag on every kickoff and punt return. The NCAA is trying to eliminate the return game. And the coaches know it, so they are opting to take the ball at the 25 yard line.

 
HuskerNBigD said:
Why? You automatically get the ball at the 25 if you fair catch it. Seems like a reasonable approach to exploiting the rules, especially if you don't think you can make it out to the 25.
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If your fastest, most exciting player catches the ball at the 2 or the 12 yard line and just stands there, because you don't think he can make it out to the 25, and you're worried about people getting hurt, and almost no other team ever does this........well I'm not even sure what that is, but I know it would have appalled us a year ago. 

 
I don’t mind the fair catches so much when they make sense. This describes a couple instances. What bugs me about it is how haphazard, and opposite of what is apparent it seems we choose to use it. Seems one or two of those could’ve/should’ve had a return attempted and then on a bouncing punt we have a guy stupidly run in there and try to handle it  :facepalm:   If they’re working as much as they say they are on special teams, they are getting absolutely no return (no pun intended) on their time investment.

 
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Guy Chamberlin said:
If your fastest, most exciting player catches the ball at the 2 or the 12 yard line and just stands there, because you don't think he can make it out to the 25, and you're worried about people getting hurt, and almost no other team ever does this........well I'm not even sure what that is, but I know it would have appalled us a year ago. 
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I’m beginning to think our fastest most exciting players are not as fast or exciting as the opponent’s run-of-the-mill kick coverage players.  Seems to me, especially in a game like that where you got down early and desperately needed a spark, that you would want to take a chance on a return and try to make something happen. Fair catching kickoffs in that game just seemed like more resignation and quitting.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
If your fastest, most exciting player catches the ball at the 2 or the 12 yard line and just stands there, because you don't think he can make it out to the 25, and you're worried about people getting hurt, and almost no other team ever does this........well I'm not even sure what that is, but I know it would have appalled us a year ago. 
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I wasn’t saying just our team. Watch any game any weekend and you’ll see that kick returns hardly ever make it out to the 25.

 
If my math is correct, in 3 games, we have had:

3 returns that have led us to starting outside the 25 yard line

4 returns that have led us to starting inside the 20 yard line

Colorado game

JD 20 yard return, but holding moves us back to the 10

MoWa loss of 2, start at the 22

JD 15 yard return to the 15

Troy

JD 16 yard return to the 27

JD 31 yard return to the 35

JD 23 yard return to the 23

Michigan

JD 16 yard return to the 17

MoWa 16 yard return, personal foul moves us back to the 9

JD 24 yard return to the 27

 
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