I love the idea of having a dedicated special teams coach because it can be a real advantage if you know what you're doing. But Bob didn't appear to be the answer. I wasn't impressed at all with our performance while he was here.
That would be Robert Wright.I remember reading one of the new assistants has special team’s coaching experience and did well.
I won't argue some of the changes have lessened the impact of special teams. I hate to go back to Iowa again, but I watch all of their games along with Syracuse each weekend. Their special teams have been fantastic for several seasons. They had to be with the offense sucking as bad it did. But they had a big block punt against Nebraska and the players talked about how there was an opportunity to exploit in the Nebraska blocking scheme that the coach identified on film. Cooper DeJean has been a fantastic punt returner for them. Sure he has athletic ability but there's blocking involved also.I'm starting to wonder about the dedicated ST coach these days. Seems like a big portion of specials (KO returns and KO coverage) is almost nonexistent in this era of club footed kickers, and fair catches that give you the ball on the 25.
I won't argue some of the changes have lessened the impact of special teams. I hate to go back to Iowa again, but I watch all of their games along with Syracuse each weekend. Their special teams have been fantastic for several seasons. They had to be with the offense sucking as bad it did. But they had a big block punt against Nebraska and the players talked about how there was an opportunity to exploit in the Nebraska blocking scheme that the coach identified on film. Cooper DeJean has been a fantastic punt returner for them. Sure he has athletic ability but there's blocking involved also.
Exactly. They're even better when not getting called for silly fair catch penalties They also went to Australia and found a punter who was actually really good, unlike our efforts Down Under with Max Von Marburg.They just needed more practice on their fair catch signal
If that punt return was called differently, they might have been the first 11-3 team in history whose 3 losses were shutouts by 26 or more points.