Special Teams

junior4949 said:
The only problem I had with the call was the one who they were trusting to make the play.  For as many games as Lightbourn was the starting punter, I can only assume he was doing a good job and having enough success in practice.  When it became apparent that practice play was quite a bit different than game play, he lost his punting duties.  So now, we have the exact same player and expected a different outcome.  Don't get me wrong, under normal circumstances I loved the call as well.  I just thought it was very ill advised running it with Mr. Practice.
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But, Lightbourn doesn't even need to have a great onside kick for it to be successful.  He didn't even make contact, which nobody could have expected.

 
I'll give you that nobody could have expected he wouldn't even make contact.  However, there are multiple things that need to happen for an onside kick to be successful.  First, he has to get it 10 yards down the field.  Then, he has to keep it inbounds.  Finally, one of our guys has to come up with the ball.  I just think running an onside kick with Lightbourn given his struggles throughout the season was ill advised.  The play would have been just about as disastrous had he simply just kicked it out of bounds. 

 
junior4949 said:
I'll give you that nobody could have expected he wouldn't even make contact.  However, there are multiple things that need to happen for an onside kick to be successful.  First, he has to get it 10 yards down the field.  Then, he has to keep it inbounds.  Finally, one of our guys has to come up with the ball.  I just think running an onside kick with Lightbourn given his struggles throughout the season was ill advised.  The play would have been just about as disastrous had he simply just kicked it out of bounds. 
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But given the surprise nature of the call and probably some things that the NU coaches saw in film, it didn't have to be a very difficult kick to pull off.

I know it's a differing of opinion, but I don't think coaches should be blamed for execution of a play when it shouldn't be that difficult to execute.  Lightbourn needed to kick the ball 20 yards towards the sideline, and with 10-20 yards of distance.

 
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