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[QUOTE="SU94, post: 4004725, member: 202"]
I am not saying you're wrong, but I will offer another way to look at this: We have a Groza Award winner who is now pedestrian at his craft. That decline began with Lustig these last few years and has continued this year. He's not an NFL kicker. Even in 2018, his kicks did not have the exit velocity needed to consistently kick comfortably in the 45-55 yard range.

We had a 4-year punter who was drafted and is at least NFL caliber (he also did kickoffs IIRC). We now have a redshirt-frosh punter with strong HS accolades that has been injured to some degree and a walk-on backup. They've both struggled.

The coverage teams have been strong outside of Pena deciding a few times to let the punt bounce and losing about 15-20 yards of extra field position. But again, like Williams, he is a red-shirt frosh and I like what I see to date.

Personally, I think the coverage teams are much, much more of a reflection on a special teams coach, as opposed to the kicker and punter.

Beyond Szymt, I think many of the struggles can simply be attributed to youth and the "curse" of living up to 2018, when we had the best kicker and one of the top 2-3 punters in CFB. In other words, the downward trend of SU Special Teams was equal parts predictable and happenstance. But, it will improve from here, almost assuredly.
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