Special Teams, improved but no punt bloacks

sfcane2

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There's no question special teams have improved dramatically. The one thing that surprises me though is that we didn't block any kicks this year. That was a staple of Golden's teams at Temple. Hopefully, we'll see a few blocks next year.
 
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is it just me but I'm not seeing many punt blocks anymore anywhere in cfb? I can't remember seeing one this year.
 
When was the last time we got a block of any kind against a solid team?

It's an indictment of our athletic ability and corching.
 
we do fairly well on returns, and stopping the other team's returns, which suggests that the athletic ability of the special teams this year is pretty good. The fact that they do well in these areas also suggests that the coaching is doing pretty well on special teams. We aren't going to be blocking too many kicks when the vast majority of the time we set up a return rather than go for pressure.
 
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Golden said to team in locker room after game that one of the top priorities in off season was special teams. Told them he was disappointed no punt blocks and it won't happen again.
 
It's critical. With Soldinger's units, teams had to worry about this, and it led to mistakes on their end. It's all about how much this is stressed.

Meyer, for ex, made this a huge priority, and it became a critical part of each game plan. In fact, they went on to win a NC bc of a fg block during a regular season. If they don't block that fg, they don't go on to win the whole thing. My point is that it's a huge deal.

I don't know if It's the players we have, or if it's just not being stressed enough. It's a mark of a well-coached team though. We have to make that leap.
 
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blocked punts are down over 100% from 5 years ago.

Yup, you just don't see it anymore. They build that little wall and everyone is afraid of getting a horrible penalty. Its definitely not just us.

Curious as what VT's stats are the last few years......
 
no Punt returns for touchdowns
no kick returns for touch downs

Not even one called back by penalty..am i missing something..we didnt even come close to retuirning one
 
Our return units looked bad to me all year.

I don't know how many times we fair caught on punt returns and on KOR field position was never really an advantage.
 
This is what I was going to say. Our kick off coverage was about 1000% better than last year. Take away the FSU game, where all our special teams sucked....


To be honest outside of the FSU game it was one of the big improvements on the team
 
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Virginia had 4 blocks this year. Then again that's one well coached team across the board.
 
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The improvement in the coverage teams was pretty impressive. But I agree, I would have liked to see us go after more punts. Most of the time it didn't even seem like we were really setting up a return either, it was almost like we were playing fake-safe a lot of the time.

I have to say there is nothing more frustrating than watching three defenders lightly tap themselves into the personal protectors like they really aren't making any sort of effort.
 
is it just me but I'm not seeing many punt blocks anymore anywhere in cfb? I can't remember seeing one this year.


I noted this myself too. It just seems that you dont see punt blocks anymore. Va Tech was the master but I dont think they have one in 2-3 years now.


We went after a couple and got a costly penalty for roughing the punter. We went punt safe the rest of the year after that.
 
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