I agree with this. We have had one of the top SP units in the country for awhile now. As far as punt returns we have not been very good, but I think we have struggled with catching the punts & that is why you see so many fair catches. It seems like teams were short kicking us with the thought of a muffed catch.
We have been very good with the ball in our hands for years now, with Henery and Maher both playing lights-out. But on kickoff coverage we finished the regular season at 95th in the nation, and we were 107th in punt return coverage. We gave up WAY too many yards on both of those areas.
That probably won't ever happen again for two reasons. 1- you're normally behind the 20 or30 and Bo doesn't want to chance a turn over in that area. 2- Player safety. Many times this last year the kicks were high kicks. We've taught the guys to keep their eyes on the ball and if they kick is hanging they are to fair catch it so they aren't sitting ducks being laid out by the defenders and risking injury.
I would bet JP spends at most about 1% of his time with Maher. Mainly before a game when he asks "how you feeling? what's your leg got in it tonight, 45, 50, 55?" Kickers for the most part are on their own. They aren't "coached" during the season. Maher is what he is, because Josh Brown helped him during the summers, just like Maher/Henery will likely help the next guy down the road. Has little to nothing to do with JP and this is probably the last thing you'd want to use to evaluate your ST coordinator IMO.
That kind of instruction is invaluable to our guys. It's fantastic that we have guys willing to come back and work with our new kickers.
I'm puzzled by the insistence of folks on this board to always hire the 'splash hire'. There is no guarantee that this type of hire would be successful.
I'm removing it because what I wrote was incorrect. I'm so sorry GBGR! I should've known you were kidding! La! I need to go back to bed!
Pretty sure GBGR was using the sarcasm font when he wrote that. Doesn't come through on all computers.
I agree with your assessment. So, what would it take to get us back to that point? I wonder if our guys are getting to the ball fast enough-when I think of our championship teams it seemed like they were down where the punt returner was in a matter of seconds defending that punt returner, opening lanes so that he could get through. I also think that the punt returner has to be confident. I think that will come with experience. What else needs to be done to improve our punt returns?
It's been a long time. Most teams have gone to the "secondary wall" method of punt protection, and we're typically sending two guys at that three-man wall. Not my favorite.
This might just be part of Bo's coaching mentality.
