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!

Special Teams- Future

TSchekler said:
Ha, it would be more accurate for you to say, "TSchekler doesn't think they are important". Every aspect of a team is important to a head coach, some are simply more important than others. My point is, you are a very knowledgeable/influential poster making a pretty big indictment about what our head coach thinks, when you do not, in fact, know what he thinks. I fully expect ST to be markedly improved next year.
Click to expand...

If the ST are not markedly improved next year, will you change your stance at all?
 
MMac is a smart coach. He has to see that we are hurting ourselves with special teams all around. Most the top rated special teams units have a coordinator. Many are TE/ST or RB/ST etc., but there is always one person focused on special teams. I hope this year MMac looks to add a ST coordinator. Really like Polian, the old UNR coach. I do like that he added a quality control guy, Matt Thompson, to specifically help out with the kickers, though the results this year were not good. It is a good idea.
 
Beyond whether we've got good a good kicker/punter, so much of this comes down to roster depth. That is better than it has been in years. Where I have really noticed it improving is on some of the short kickoffs. If there's any hang time, we're often making tackles inside the 20. That wasn't happening 3 years ago.
 
Buffnik said:
Beyond whether we've got good a good kicker/punter, so much of this comes down to roster depth. That is better than it has been in years. Where I have really noticed it improving is on some of the short kickoffs. If there's any hang time, we're often making tackles inside the 20. That wasn't happening 3 years ago.
Click to expand...
Agreed. 9/10 times we shake our heads at special teams during the games, it's because Kinney shanks a punt for 25 yards, punts it into our Guard's ass, Graham kicks a KO out of bounds or misses a chip shot FG (sometimes 3 in a game). Our Special Team's woes have almost exclusively been due to two below average players taking care of our kicking duties, not necessarily the coverage units or blocking units themselves.
 
you would think that cu would be an attractive place at altitude for kickers and punters......
 
I don't mind directional punting if you can execute. Problem is, we usually shank them. Kicking off out of bounds is inexcusable. It better be not often. We give up too much field position.
 
As been said already in this thread, I believe with better recruiting we see an improvement on special teams. Its not a coincidence that CU really struggled in special teams against the two best teams on their schedule (Michigan & Washington). I think they change for the good on coverage and punt/kickoff teams. However, we still have a major issue at K/P position. Kinney can't handle pressure situations, it seems.
 
Better recruiting will result in better depth on special teams. Remember when Chido ran down the Yute's kickoff returner and pushed him out of bounds at the 3 yard line, which ultimately resulted in an important saving of 4 points? The most amazing part of that play, to me, was realizing that CU has a crucial starter and near-future upper-mid round NFL draft choice risking injury by playing on the f*****g kickoff team.
 
Ringer said:
Better recruiting will result in better depth on special teams. Remember when Chido ran down the Yute's kickoff returner and pushed him out of bounds at the 3 yard line, which ultimately resulted in an important saving of 4 points? The most amazing part of that play, to me, was realizing that CU has a crucial starter and near-future upper-mid round NFL draft choice risking injury by playing on the f*****g kickoff team.
Click to expand...
Similar thoughts crossed my mind.
 
I actually don't think that improved recruiting will lead to vastly improved special teams. Speed can run a person out of a play as quickly as it can run a person into a play and a person can be as strong as an ox, but if they don't have a killer attitude they will still get blown up with the speed and force that occurs on special teams plays.

A great example of lacking attitude was what happened to Bisharat against Utah. He came in 3/4 speed on kick coverage, sees a Utah blocker, the Utah blocker also see's Beau and Bish gets BTFU, leaving a gaping hole which lead to a TD (Guaranteed that block is going to be on a lot of Utah season highlights). Special teams takes both practice to ensure discipline and a seriously crazy attitude. CU lacked on both fronts this year. Often finding themselves out of position and being blown up. (BTW, the Bish play is also the reason a switch to LB isn't likely to be as good for him as some think).

Kicking on the other hand, is all about recruiting. Guys need to come in with strong legs and good technique. A lack of a leg can't be cured and major changes to technique is like changing a golf swing, as likely to screw up a kicker/punter for life as it is to help. Unfortunately, this isn't a recruiting emphasis for CU.
 
I guess we will see if MM makes the same mistake with Price that he made with Graham.
 
CitizenKane said:
I actually don't think that improved recruiting will lead to vastly improved special teams. Speed can run a person out of a play as quickly as it can run a person into a play and a person can be as strong as an ox, but if they don't have a killer attitude they will still get blown up with the speed and force that occurs on special teams plays.

A great example of lacking attitude was what happened to Bisharat against Utah. He came in 3/4 speed on kick coverage, sees a Utah blocker, the Utah blocker also see's Beau and Bish gets BTFU, leaving a gaping hole which lead to a TD (Guaranteed that block is going to be on a lot of Utah season highlights). Special teams takes both practice to ensure discipline and a seriously crazy attitude. CU lacked on both fronts this year. Often finding themselves out of position and being blown up. (BTW, the Bish play is also the reason a switch to LB isn't likely to be as good for him as some think).

Kicking on the other hand, is all about recruiting. Guys need to come in with strong legs and good technique. A lack of a leg can't be cured and major changes to technique is like changing a golf swing, as likely to screw up a kicker/punter for life as it is to help. Unfortunately, this isn't a recruiting emphasis for CU.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that you don't believe that increased team speed is an advantage on special teams?

You have to assume "all things being equal" and that the level of discipline & how well they're coached up is a constant. With that, being fast is a huge advantage.
 
Buffnik said:
Are you saying that you don't believe that increased team speed is an advantage on special teams?

You have to assume "all things being equal" and that the level of discipline & how well they're coached up is a constant. With that, being fast is a huge advantage.
Click to expand...

Sure it is, but do we have slow players on ST now or something? It seemed to me that plenty of our best athletes were out there on ST.



I spy Oliver out there as a gunner, Christian Shaver, Ryan Moeller, Ryan Severson, and Chris Bounds running around out there. That's not really to blame them on this particular play as that was quite possibly a punt with 1 second of hang time, but I think we need a coaching upgrade on top of a team speed increase.

And that's not to mention a lot of our issues would be resolved with better talent at the K and P positions. But since we aren't even attempting a talent upgrade at those positions, it leads me to believe duff may be correct that Mac doesn't really care much about ST. And of the 3 facets of a team, by all means, have a ****ty ST rather than ****ty O or D, but why just accept a ****ty ST?
 
White_Rabbit said:
Sure it is, but do we have slow players on ST now or something? It seemed to me that plenty of our best athletes were out there on ST.



I spy Oliver out there as a gunner, Christian Shaver, Ryan Moeller, Ryan Severson, and Chris Bounds running around out there. That's not really to blame them on this particular play as that was quite possibly a punt with 1 second of hang time, but I think we need a coaching upgrade on top of a team speed increase.

And that's not to mention a lot of our issues would be resolved with better talent at the K and P positions. But since we aren't even attempting a talent upgrade at those positions, it leads me to believe duff may be correct that Mac doesn't really care much about ST. And of the 3 facets of a team, by all means, have a ****ty ST rather than ****ty O or D, but why just accept a ****ty ST?
Click to expand...


I never argued that scheme and specialists don't need to improve.

All I said was that being faster leads to improved coverage. No one said it is only that.
 
White_Rabbit said:
Sure it is, but do we have slow players on ST now or something? It seemed to me that plenty of our best athletes were out there on ST.



I spy Oliver out there as a gunner, Christian Shaver, Ryan Moeller, Ryan Severson, and Chris Bounds running around out there. That's not really to blame them on this particular play as that was quite possibly a punt with 1 second of hang time, but I think we need a coaching upgrade on top of a team speed increase.

And that's not to mention a lot of our issues would be resolved with better talent at the K and P positions. But since we aren't even attempting a talent upgrade at those positions, it leads me to believe duff may be correct that Mac doesn't really care much about ST. And of the 3 facets of a team, by all means, have a ****ty ST rather than ****ty O or D, but why just accept a ****ty ST?
Click to expand...

This one is probably the best example of what you're talking about... Chido, Oliver, Fisher, Olugbode, etc. are all out there on Punt coverage. They definitely decided to make a conscious change on that unit in an attempt to make it better.
 
Buffnik said:
I never argued that scheme and specialists don't need to improve.

All I said was that being faster leads to improved coverage. No one said it is only that.
Click to expand...

This is also goes back to getting more physically developed players in recruiting. There is no reason we cannot count on several underclassmen to make their mark early on in their careers on special teams. In fact, it is a great way to get them acclimated to college football.
 
Buffnik said:
I never argued that scheme and specialists don't need to improve.

All I said was that being faster leads to improved coverage. No one said it is only that.
Click to expand...

It just seems to me that people are attempting to make a case for nothing is going to change, but we'll have slightly faster players and therefore ST won't do it's best to lose us multiple games next season. I think you and I read CitizenKane's post slightly differently. I don't think he's saying speed is a bad thing, it's just that it won't matter much if it isn't reigned in by some good coaching.

I think we can all agree that our ST problems last season can't be easily summed up as an issue on any one front. Coaching needs to get better, players need to make plays when they're in position to do so, and we definitely need a talent upgrade at K/P. My concern is we might be looking at fixing one of those problems.
 
Duff Man said:
This is also goes back to getting more physically developed players in recruiting. There is no reason we cannot count on several underclassmen to make their mark early on in their careers on special teams. In fact, it is a great way to get them acclimated to college football.
Click to expand...

Yep. We got faster the past 4 years. Now we are moving toward recruiting fast guys who come in at 17/18 years old physically ready to take on a block from a college football player who might be 22/23 years old and has had the benefit of all that training.

Never compromise on speed, but enhance recruiting by bringing in guys who are more physically developed to contribute sooner. That's our next step. And we'll see if it's happening on special teams if freshmen win ST jobs over our senior walk-ons and over our scholarship guys who are outside the 2-deep at their positions.
 
White_Rabbit said:
It just seems to me that people are attempting to make a case for nothing is going to change, but we'll have slightly faster players and therefore ST won't do it's best to lose us multiple games next season. I think you and I read CitizenKane's post slightly differently. I don't think he's saying speed is a bad thing, it's just that it won't matter much if it isn't reigned in by some good coaching.

I think we can all agree that our ST problems last season can't be easily summed up as an issue on any one front. Coaching needs to get better, players need to make plays when they're in position to do so, and we definitely need a talent upgrade at K/P. My concern is we might be looking at fixing one of those problems.
Click to expand...

How much of our ST problems were related to scheme? Maybe the 1st punt that got blocked at Michigan since it looked like the same block that happened at Hawaii the year before with the overload. Otherwise, failures were an issue with the specialists not performing on the physical/mental side. Special Teams coaches are not kicking & punting gurus. We have one of those as an analyst on staff. Maybe he's not the right guy. Or maybe this is mostly a recruiting issue.

But in terms of getting things blocked, getting pressure on kicks and covering kicks... seemed to me that we improved quite a bit this year.
 
Buffnik said:
How much of our ST problems were related to scheme? Maybe the 1st punt that got blocked at Michigan since it looked like the same block that happened at Hawaii the year before with the overload. Otherwise, failures were an issue with the specialists not performing on the physical/mental side. Special Teams coaches are not kicking & punting gurus. We have one of those as an analyst on staff. Maybe he's not the right guy. Or maybe this is mostly a recruiting issue.

But in terms of getting things blocked, getting pressure on kicks and covering kicks... seemed to me that we improved quite a bit this year.
Click to expand...

I guess our perceptions just differ. We blocked 1 FG, so that was good, but got.. how many blocked? Zero punts blocked, but 1 punt return for TD. Allowed 2 punts to be returned for TD and 1 kick return to the 5 or so against Utah. I mean we could've lost that game if Chido didn't chase that guy down and knock him out of bounds there. We may have actually held on vs Michigan if our punt unit didn't totally crap on itself. It just seemed to me like every week we were finding a new way to **** ourselves in the ST realm.

ESPN has our special teams efficiency at 118th in the country. This site has us in the 100s on basically every unit of ST. Check out the 2015 rankings for comparison there, they have us as being about 2x worse on a lot of units.
 
White_Rabbit said:
I guess our perceptions just differ. We blocked 1 FG, so that was good, but got.. how many blocked? Zero punts blocked, but 1 punt return for TD. Allowed 2 punts to be returned for TD and 1 kick return to the 5 or so against Utah. I mean we could've lost that game if Chido didn't chase that guy down and knock him out of bounds there. We may have actually held on vs Michigan if our punt unit didn't totally crap on itself. It just seemed to me like every week we were finding a new way to **** ourselves in the ST realm.

ESPN has our special teams efficiency at 118th in the country. This site has us in the 100s on basically every unit of ST. Check out the 2015 rankings for comparison there, they have us as being about 2x worse on a lot of units.
Click to expand...

And just about every single issue was due to our kicker/punter being too slow or kicking too low.
 
I would love to see CMM add Tony Levine to the staff. Levine is an outstanding TE/ST coach. He's also a very underrated recruiter with a ton of connections in Texas, specifically in and around Houston. He got a ton of talent to U of Houston and Herman was the beneficiary of a bunch of that talent. Levine would be an awesome addition to the staff.
 
Buffnik said:
Are you saying that you don't believe that increased team speed is an advantage on special teams?

You have to assume "all things being equal" and that the level of discipline & how well they're coached up is a constant. With that, being fast is a huge advantage.
Click to expand...
My point about speed was that it can take players out of a play just as quickly as it could put them in position to make a play. Improved recruiting and team speed just won't help without the concerted coaching effort. Given the number of top line players that were playing special teams by years end, I think it is fair to say that better recruits won't make much of an impact without the coaches putting a ton of focus on special teams.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top