Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Ark HS coach doesn't believe in punting, punt returns and onside kicks all the time

JimmyBuff

Well-Known Member
Kind of an interesting article from SI

If you think Bill Belichick bucks convention with his play-calling, meet Kevin Kelley, head football coach of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark. Actually, perhaps you've met him already.
Kelley has become a cult figure among both football coaches and the sports analytics community for his disregard -- contempt even -- for traditional football wisdom. He's been featured in Sports Illustrated. He figured prominently in Scorecasting. He's been a regular at coaching clinics and at the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

For one, Kelley doesn't believe in punting. His Bruins teams go for it on fourth down, even in the most extreme situations. His playbook is filled with tricks and gimmicks. He often forbids his players to return punts, reckoning that the odds of a fumble outstrip the incremental yards that can be gained from a return. After his team scores, it almost always attempts an onside kick. There are 12 varieties in the playbook -- including one in which the ball is placed flat on the ground -- and Kelley figures that the chance of recovery outweighs the risk of allowing the opposition to start a drive near midfield.


The decision not to punt? According to Kelley's statistics, when a team punts from near its end zone, the opponent will take possession inside the 40-yard line and will then score a touchdown 77 percent of the time. If it recovers on downs inside the 10, it will score a touchdown 92 percent of the time. "So [forsaking] a punt, you give your offense a chance to stay on the field," he said. "And if you miss, the odds of the other team scoring only increase 15 percent. It's like someone said, '[Punting] is what you do on fourth down,' and everyone did it without asking why.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...09/15/kelley.pulaski/index.html#ixzz1Y57MZWf4
Click to expand...
 
You can get away with that stuff in High School. He'd be crushed at the college level.
 
Seriously, this is the kind of sh*t that Hawk used to say. "Well, you know that teams that go for it on 4th down from their own 40 yard line have a 54% chance of winning the game. Most people don't know that, but I do." It's that kind of dumbass crap that gets coaches fired. Like I said, this dude can get away with it in high school. I wouldn't want him anywhere near my college football team.
 
sackman said:
Seriously, this is the kind of sh*t that Hawk used to say. "Well, you know that teams that go for it on 4th down from their own 40 yard line have a 54% chance of winning the game. Most people don't know that, but I do." It's that kind of dumbass crap that gets coaches fired. Like I said, this dude can get away with it in high school. I wouldn't want him anywhere near my college football team.
Click to expand...

when you post something like this you need to use the cliniced tags or an acceptable alternate is starting with riddle me this....
 
Same coach has a new idea he wants to try out this fall: more laterals.

It made sense to Kelley – bigger chunks of yardage meant scoring quicker and less opportunity to commit turnovers and drive-killing penalties. He became obsessed with finding a system designed for big plays. He found that on plays when two players touched the ball – a typical handoff or pass – teams gained 20 yards about 10 percent of the time. But when at least three players touched the ball – a trick play with a lateral involved – the percentage for gaining 20 yards rose to around 20 percent.
Click to expand...

And so Kelley instituted a new system. When he calls out “Rugby!” before an offensive series, his wide receivers change their assignment. Rather than blocking downfield, they rush toward the receiver who catches the ball. If they’re open, they yell the receiver’s name and which side they’re on. He tells his players only to pitch the ball when they’re sure it’s safe.
Click to expand...

I could see this idea getting more mainstream traction than the never punt, always onside strategy. Fans won't really get upset about the possibility of more trick plays, unless they just never work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ach-who-never-punts-has-another-radical-idea/
 
Using stats and percentages to determine whether to regularly bypass punting, onside kick every time, and use more open field laterals is typically a strategy used by teams that have to gain a competitive edge in order to compete with the more talented teams. Even if it all works out in their favor at season's end, those teams typically still end up losing to the more talented teams.

The team I coach for falls under this category in some respects. We field a good, competitive playoff team, every single year and some years we even make deep runs in the playoffs, and we do this with maybe one Division 1 caliber player every 2-3 years. One thing we do to gain a little bit of an edge is go for 2 just about every time. The idea being that high school kickers are simply not automatic at PATs (we've never had one go even 90% on the season), therefore, all we need to be is 50% from 2 pt conversion (which typically, we're close to 66-70%) throughout a game to match or be better than kicking a PAT every time.

When looking at this approach from a 10,000 ft season long level, it does prove to work in our advantage from a straight statistical standpoint. However, this approach doesn't take into consideration game situations in which it just doesn't make sense to go for two. Either way, it's interesting to hear different approaches used by high school coaches around the country.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top