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Message: [QUOTE="Shenexon, post: 359603, member: 129"] I'm not an X's and O's kinda fan but was hoping that those of you who are could talk about why our special teams have been so bad and what the coaches & players could and should do about it. At times we've outkicked the coverage on punts allowing a good or great return. Some people have suggested we need faster people on the coverage team instead of beefier players currently on the field, but I'm not sure if it's a coaching thing, a punter not executing kind of thing, or a coverage team player thing. All I know is we've looked horrible at times on all kinds of kicks. If we can't do better, why punt? We've also done a poor job on our kick returns, except for I think one nice return by Kobena against NW. For the most part we've gotten no advantage from our kick returns and the only reason it hasn't hurt more is that we have the best offensive production in years. I think we've lost the field possession battles so far which isn't a winning strategy. Between kick returns and turnovers, four of NW's drives started inside our 30, not to mention the punt return for a TD. The missed field goals are another thing but I'm not sure if the problem is more complex than just Ross Krautman losing his rhythm & confidence or not. One thing we've had great success with over time has been with kickers. The same players did better last year than this year, which should be unusual. The only bright spot I've seen is with Norton doing kickoffs. We have a good offense and a workable defense that may be endangered by a very weak special teams unit. We lost the NW game due specifically to special teams and were hurt by special teams in all three games so far. What should/could/is being done to at least have special teams function at an acceptable level? UConn has a good defense & special teams unit. We don't want that to be enough to beat us nor be a model for other teams to use in beating us. Isn't that our primary weakness at this point? [/QUOTE]

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