Special Teams has been an absolute disaster

HuskyClaws

HuskyClaws

New Fish
Going by some advance metrics, here's our ratings for all 3 phases

Offense:
S&P+: 26th
FPI: 12th

Defense:
S&P+: 9th
FPI: 25th

Special Teams:
S&P+: 123rd
FPI: 88th

Overall:
S&P+: 9th
FPI: 11th

The offense and defense are probably about maxed out based on the current talent level. Special teams on the other hand has been an absolute disaster. That's not just the kicking game either.

Going further into the Special Teams rating...
Kickoff Yards: 99th (59.88 avg)
Kickoff Returns: 75th (20.25 avg)
Opponent Kickoff Returns: 76th (21.28 avg)
Punt Returns: 108th (5.08 avg)
Opponent Punt Returns: 108th (13.15 avg)
FG%: 75th (66.2%)

We are bad in literally every single Special Teams category.

There is no way that Gregory should have a job next year (or tomorrow for that matter).
 
Yeah I remember in the Auburn game it seemed they had the ball at their 35 every possession.

Gregory did coach Pettis, but how much of that is actually coaching?

Those are damning team stats
 
Yeah I remember in the Auburn game it seemed they had the ball at their 35 every possession.

Gregory did coach Pettis, but how much of that is actually coaching?

Those are damning team stats
Click to expand...

Gregory is the Special Teams coach, but Petersen coaches the punt returners:

"Petersen and Pettis have grown close over the past three seasons. The only position Petersen personally coaches is those returners[/b], and he’s studied the art of the punt return enough that he has developed a set of guidelines — guidelines he considers proprietary and doesn’t want to make public[/i]." - Seattle Times; 11.3.16
 
Yeah I remember in the Auburn game it seemed they had the ball at their 35 every possession.

Gregory did coach Pettis, but how much of that is actually coaching?

Those are damning team stats
Click to expand...

Gregory is the Special Teams coach, but Petersen coaches the punt returners:

"Petersen and Pettis have grown close over the past three seasons. The only position Petersen personally coaches is those returners[/b], and he’s studied the art of the punt return enough that he has developed a set of guidelines — guidelines he considers proprietary and doesn’t want to make public[/i]." - Seattle Times; 11.3.16
Click to expand...

Which is the least of our ST problems. Yeah they could be a lot better, but our coverage teams are far and away the biggest culprit. There’s no excuse for the amount of drives opponents have started past the 30 against us. Gregory needed to be door.ass.out several yesterdays ago, when his unit almost cost us the UCLA game.
 
Im hearing from tequila college kickers are bad and Danny O'Neill is high on Henry.

Not sure if anyone remembers Henry's performance at UCLA.
 
Look at the bright side. Our QB Kneel has been perfect this year, If you consider that special teams we are good at something.

Also, we really need brownings pooch punt to put the special back on special teams.
 
Look at the bright side. Our QB Kneel has been perfect this year, If you consider that special teams we are good at something.

Also, we really need brownings pooch punt to put the special back on special teams.
Click to expand...

Don't forget Jake backpedaling against UCLA to run clock
 
All I know is that every time we return a kickoff it seems like our guy is running with cement shoes.
 
Special teams the past few years has benefited by so many fast twitch safeties, LBs and RBs, and an all world punt returner. Those guys are all gone now (Turner, Bierra, Azeem, Eifler, Coleman, Pettis), and we've had to replace them with JAG WRs and defensive backups because we don't have enough depth at LB to risk running our starters out there every time and our RBs don't play on special teams other than as returners. To compound everything we just lost our best coverage guy, RIP Joyner.

Also important to note that we have not incorporated freshman into special teams really at all this year (sans Kyler Gordon last week), which had previously been a staple of the program burning redshirts before with the young guys on special teams. The decision to redshirt the whole 2018 class, (which I think is best for resetting/realigning to max the talent in the program down the road) needs to pay off big long term because we've sacrificed getting a lot of our elite athletes out there by rolling with warn down starters and unimpressive backups this year. Pete seems to be hinting at some sort of rotation for those guys in the second half of the season like they did with Kyler, but not sure if that was always the plan or just became a necessity because our special teams are such shit.
 
Gregory's record is currently shit.

Under Gregory - Azeem was good for a while, then regressed. Keishawn was fine, but didn't blow up. He doesn't get along with (or recruit) black players. Eifler never developed and left. Azeem left. Welly hasn't developed. DJ Beavers is injured all the time, which isn't Gregory's fault, but fuck Gregory anyway.

BBK's problems are primarily physical - that's not Gregory's fault (it's not BBK's fault either). Tevis has been mediocre this year; I think because a late career position change (even though it's a good position for him) has been difficult and you have to love the fact we didn't redshirt him (which I believe was Gregory's ultimate decision).

He has recruited like crap... his biggest wins were Welly (layup) and Eifler (two white parents). In our amazingly accurate OKG assessment, for some reason, we didn't correctly assess Eifler and he didn't fit our program (he's black) so he was dissatisfied and left because he hated Gregory.

Sirmon was a layup. Tafisi had no better offers and we got on him after losing our other targets.

We have no shot at any black kids this year and we may get Heimuli (please god), but Henry came and left and wants to go to Bama. It's not enough to make a case for Gregory.

But then... we get to special teams. Since he took it over from Choate it's been fucking awful outside of super talented guys like Ross and Dante (who he doesn't coach). Whitford has been good too, but it's not like Gregory had anything to do with that.

You judge ST coaches by coverage and return blocking IMO. We're not great at either.

Let's hire a black guy to coach the LBs, thanks Pete.
 
as was the case with the seahawks when they were great, special teams performance is largely dictated by overall roster talent, specifically LBers tho.

All this tells me is that we are not that talented, which is a major problem in year 5.
 
as was the case with the seahawks when they were great, special teams performance is largely dictated by overall roster talent, specifically LBers tho.

All this tells me is that we are not that talented, which is a major problem in year 5.
Click to expand...

We used to have special team aces. Bierria was a fucking stud on kick coverage. Same for Turner and Joyner. It's really simple. Run, avoid blocks, stay in your lanes, and tackle.
 
as was the case with the seahawks when they were great, special teams performance is largely dictated by overall roster talent, specifically LBers tho.

All this tells me is that we are not that talented, which is a major problem in year 5.
Click to expand...

We used to have special team aces. Bierria was a fucking stud on kick coverage. Same for Turner and Joyner. It's really simple. Run, avoid blocks, stay in your lanes, and tackle.
Click to expand...

The problem is always the coaching. Always.

Blaming players: Sark era dawgman comments.

It’s not the talent. It’s the coaching. Lots of teams with shit talent are good at kickoff coverage.

I don’t know whose fault it is, but I know whose responsibility it is.

Bob gotta go.
 
End of the regular season update

Offense:
S&P+: 30th
FPI: 13th

Defense:
S&P+: 8th
FPI: 21st

Special Teams:
S&P+: 115th
FPI: 98th

Overall:
S&P+: 9th
FPI: 10th

Going further into the Special Teams rating...
Kickoff Yards: 95th (59.85 avg)
Kickoff Returns: 84th (19.54 avg)
Opponent Kickoff Returns: 82nd (21.30 avg)
Punt Returns: 101st (6.11 avg)
Opponent Punt Returns: 93rd (10.20avg)
FG%: 61st (73.7%)

Our FG kicker is the highest rated category of our special teams. That should tell you how terrible it has been.
 
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