One posters opinion - Special Teams (3rd in a series)

[PirateVOL]

Special Teams:
The special teams were indeed riding the short bus this year.  The only area that was effective was kick coverage.  We had only one breakdown in coverage and we had that punt return well covered, just failed to execute (several) tackles.

Kicking game:
I do not know what the answer is but it isn’t Palardy.  EPs are an adventure for him and field goals?  Forget about it.  Kickoffs were good early and degenerated into farces late.  We need an SEC level kicker in the worst way.

Punting:
Darr isn’t the answer.  He usually gets good hang time but he >95% hits a tail dragger that gets no real distance and all too often hits a poor punt, usually when we need a good booming punt to help get us out of a hole.  I can’t really think of a time this year where the punting game swapped field position FOR us.  We need an SEC level punter.  Interestingly, Palardy could be that punter if he was allowed to concentrate on punting if we got another place kicker.

Returns:
Young started out well and seemed to be coached into being overly conservative.  He lost that punch as a returner.  By the end of the year we essentially had no return game.

Coverage:
The one bright spot.  Lane discipline was very good this year, one area of clear improvement.  Even the punt return for a TD by the Hawgs we covered well, just didn’t tackle. 

Coaching:
Dooley needs to go all in and coach special teams full time and Russell needs to go somewhere else.  We flat SUCK at special teams and that is not acceptable.

[GreggO]

Once again brother, I enjoyed the read a lot! "Riding the short bus....", I got that one!     


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Thanks