I understand all the 'fire the ST coach' sentiment but (I am a big Riley fan don't misunderstand) these special teams were not very good last year and are getting worse this year. THE PRIMARY REASON IS THE LINE NOT BLOCKING!
- This makes it almost impossible to plan for and set up and execute any kind of punt action using the rugby style kick techniques effectively nor does it allow for above average punt coverage. It also make life miserable for a punter whose desire is to kick strong, high, well aimed kicks to make returns tough, change field position, and etc. If the punter is spending his time and energy terrified of the onslaught of defenders about to block his kick and run him over on the way to the endzone, it does not bode well for replaceing Sam Foltz with another nationally recognized punter.
- And, because we are so evenly matched with our opponents each week, our Coaches cannot reasonably expect and plan for significant leads and control of the game at the line of scrimmage. This means that the Coaches are going to tend to be gun shy of taking extra risks to be more aggressive on offense, defense or special teams. We have had to go on 4 downs in a few games just to try and get the go ahead TD or to keep the opponent from getting the ball back with time enough to threaten another score vs. the Defense.
- Our kick off coverage has been decent although it remains a little scary when we are kicking off late in the games after just score the go ahead TD or FG and its kick off time. We want Drew Brown to kick the ball out of the stadium just to be sure they don't get a big return and while he has done well, I think sometimes they are telling him to take a little off his boot to try to tempt the opponent return team to bring it out and tackle them inside the 25. This is too risky as our coverage can and has broken down and big returns are had vs us or could have.
- We do the nonsense of showing a trick play on the PAT line up only to simply do the 'fire drill' and line up in the usual formation and kick the point after as usual. I know Riley feels it forces the opponents to spend / 'waste' time in practice preparing for the fake kick and go for two s but still by now the opponents have all worked on this stuff ad infinitum anyway. Or, let's actually use the 'fake' play and go for two maybe once in a while (even a couple in a row) just to put the fear of God in them so to speak. But, no, we have basically done nothing in our 'special teams' that one can say is special really. Mediocre to totally absent punt return game. Mediocre to poor punt protection and punting in general. Mediocre to below average kick off coverage and kick off returns. Basically no big plays or game changer type things that can keep us in a big game against an opponent we won't be able to manhandle physically.
- final point is that I don't care how poor the job by Read has been, ultimately you have to blame Riley as he is the boss and after 10 games this year and 13 last year plus a couple spring games and a whole bunch of practices, we remain awful (give them a D+ ONLY because of how great Drew B is doing or else it is an F). Riley should fix this now and we don't need to wait until February 2017 for some new assistant to come in. This is not rocket science and these coaches have been around football for decades each!
