I think it's a coaching issue. DiLallo got worse over the years under Riddle and even Crosby's percentage went in the crapper with Riddle coaching him.
Don't recruit a kicker or punter. Let the new ST guy do an eval in the spring. If the guys we have can't play, go find some guys over the summer.
I think it's a coaching issue. DiLallo got worse over the years under Riddle and even Crosby's percentage went in the crapper with Riddle coaching him.
Don't recruit a kicker or punter. Let the new ST guy do an eval in the spring. If the guys we have can't play, go find some guys over the summer.
It seems to me that college coaches, many times, don't put a lot of effort into recruiting kickers. For whatever reason. One, they believe they can get kickers as walk ons. Two, its hard to project a HS kicer to the college level. I think the two go hand in hand.
I think we need someone to coach em up first, plus we have enough schollies on kickers we need linemen and running backs
This is sure a painful subject.
I guess I would say: be careful what you wish for, guys.
Regardless of who is the punter, THIS is what we have long-snapping-wise. People wondered why Riddle high-fived the punter after this crazy punt. It was because it was amazing that he was able to get it off at all. (Yes, the longnsapper is a true freshman and should get better, but I don't see anyone holding his performance under the microscope.)
View attachment 5908
View attachment 5909
The ball came in low, skipped on the astroturf and landed in front of him. He must have had some baseball experience as a shortstop scooping up ground balls.
And Riddle comes out with this statement in the Post. (I'm not quoting, I'm linking.)
Basically saying he thinks Grossnickle will go down as "one of the best ever" punters CU has seen.
--- all this means we have absolutely no idea what to expect.
What makes this so difficult is that we don't know how much influence the coaching staff had on these guys' performance. We can speculate that Goodman was given more chances to kick than the other guys - the benefit of knowing the coaches and having experience. We know that Grossnickle wasn't recruited as a punter, but was switched that direction. And we don't have much time to predict who will get it together, before deciding whether to throw the baby out with the bath water and start fresh --- with another unproven freshman K/P at best.
I was incredibly impressed that Nickle picked that one up off the carpet without letting his knee touch the ground (and thus causing a safety).
The long snapping has been terrible Alferd. Takes forever to get back there at times and sometimes it barely gets back there at all. Who the hell knows at this point, the special teams are a mess.
I would like to see what Grossnickel can do with a little bit of consistent protection in front of him. It seemed like until the last 3 games (hey what a coincidence, something must have happened) he was constantly kicking under pressure. It is hard for any punter to get a rhythm when he is constantly worried about getting the punt smacked back into his face.
Same happened with Goodman, last three games he had a lot less pressure and seemed to relax a lot more and just kick.
i was saving this for my powerpoint presentation on how to block a punt (j/k :smile2but here's what Riddles idea of blocking looked like from the punter's point of view (all the same play, just two different camera angles):
View attachment 5913
View attachment 5910
View attachment 5911
View attachment 5912
View attachment 5914