IlliniHusker
Five-Star Recruit
So far I haven't read anything about NU's special teams during the spring practice. Will Niels Paul continue to return KOs and punts?
This may be partly because we have Henery punting rugby style much of the time. When he was at Burke he could boom the high towering punts for pretty long distances. Maybe the rugby style punts are harder for the punt returner to handle, even though they don’t go far in the air.I'd like for a younger punter to get some work in for some of the longer punting situations we run into this year (when our offense has to stall inside our 30). It seemed for every punt that Henery boomed for over 50-60 yards, he'd have a punt that'd only go 35-40 yards. Not exactly a shank, but definitely not the best. In fact if we get a real boomer this year, only have Henery punt when we're inside the 50, play to his best strength, directional kicking.
I'm not so sure about that, to be honest. It's not very good coaching strategy to ONLY let your backups into games once the game is out of hand. I'm not saying bring in the back-up kicker when there is one minute left in a tie ball game, fourth down, at our own 20 yard line. I'm just saying that you can't teach these guys the pressure of the game without letting them experience it first hand.We would have to have a comfortable lead to see new kickers/punters. Bo isn't going to throw a guy in for some reps when the game is still on the line. The best players play as long as the game is in question.
As far as returners go, I still see them using Paul because he is explosive, but if they can get 2 new guys on kick offs that would be great, or someone to go back with Paul. Have a two deep return set up so there is always a blocker back there.
I doubt you'll here anything about special teams until the fall. Do we even do kick returns in the Spring game?So far I haven't read anything about NU's special teams during the spring practice. Will Niels Paul continue to return KOs and punts?