And blocked for our fastest return man after strategizing how we break him free, made tackling their returner a huge priority and put in our best, and said we will win it with special teams.
What if we scored easy points on specials teams and what if we won games because we put importance on special teams?
What if we sold out on special teams?
What a wonderful world it would be.
We’d then be Virginia Tech, beaten by Old Dominion this past Saturday. Next idea please.
Broyles made special teams a priority and we had great return and kicking teams in those days.
I’m sure special teams will get a lot of “special” attention this week. Right now, we are just a ship with a lot of leaks and very limited patches. The time we spend correcting and improving special teams this week will be beneficial but will also affect the time we can spend on continuing to apply those patches elsewhere. Defense took a major step forward at Auburn. Offense took a baby step. Special teams regressed, so naturally we have to address that, and I have no doubt we will. Just going to take time and impossible to fix everything immediately without recruiting a lot more “patches”.
Frank Broyles won a lot of games and Championships that way. Check out his first one. Won it with the quick kick and punt return. Different game now for sure, but there is no other set of plays where there is more yards at stake than those plays. It must get tons of attention and it must be right.
Broyles and others knew Arkansas did not always have the best talent top to bottom so great special teams could be the great equalizer. Need to get back to that mindset.
Saw a clip of the long punt return from behind the runner…whoever is #9 (don’t know since their could be multiple #9 jerseys) but whoever was simply dogging it. Barely reached for the guy and didn’t pursue kind of starting half-walking/jogging.
I saw that, too. It was Santos.
The thing that’s always made me scratch my head, CHN had Felix Jones and Darren McFadden return kickoffs. With guys like Chase Hayden and TJ Hammonds, why aren’t they back there? I really like Warren, but Hayden seems to be more electric than him. Just a thought
Great points. Bad special teams = symptom of a team with too many problems on its hands and not enough practice time.
Never thought I would mention this name again but how about bringing John L Smith back to coach special teams??? :lol:
Speaking of that, do we have “a special teams coach”? Or are we running the “shared duty” crap on special teams? Your special teams will never be “all they can be” if you don’t have a coach dedicated to special teams.
JFB also had essentially unlimited practice time. They could spend an hour at the end on special teams if they wished. CM doesn’t have that option due to the NCAA time limits. But neither does any other D-I coach now and virtually all of them have better STs than we do, so that ain’t an excuse.
He’s done that many times in his career.
Hardly any teams have a Special Teams coach. There are a few that do, but most teams it’s a shared duty.
That used to be the case before the additional asst coach spot the NCAA added last year. Many teams took advantage of a 10th assistant and added a Special Teams coach in the 2017 season. LSU hired a special teams coach, and they credited their win over Auburn this season to that special teams coach. I think every team in a season could credit one or more wins or losses on special teams play.