Kelley Named ACC Specialist of the Week

[CuseJacket]

Is Jude Kelley human?

For his career, Kelley is now an astounding 5-for-5 on onside kick attempts, including 3-for-3 this season.

 

[4shotB]

If there ever was a "no-brainer" decision, this one is it.

 

[UgaBlows]

Should we be doing this more?

 

[jgtengineer]

We should just onside every time. worst that happens is we give them a short field they score but a condensed field has a higher turnvoer chance. And it gets us more possessions. If we are going to play with air raid level interceptiosn we need air raid level play counts and possessions.

 

[GTpdm]

Is Jude Kelley human?

A quick internet check tells me that the average success rate of onside kicks in college is 23.8% (over the years 2014-2020). Given that value, the likelihood of going 5-for-5 is 0.076%, or 1 in 1309. Or to put in another way, Kelley's performance is just over four standard deviations above the expected success rate of 1.19 recoveries on 5 attempts. That puts him in the 99.994th percentile of kickers.

So no, he is probably not human. All hail the harbinger of our alien/robot overlords!

 

[Tech93]

If I were a NFL team, I would hire him just for onside kicks.

 

[Fatmike91]

Should we be doing this more?

Until the defense stops half (or *shocking* more than half) of the other team's drives, we should be doing it every single time. And no more punts if we aren't pinned deep.

/

 

[JacketOff]

Until the defense stops half (or *shocking* more than half) of the other team's drives, we should be doing it every single time. And no more punts if we aren't pinned deep.

/

Yeah… probably not. The coach at Presbyterian now who was famous for doing this in high school is 0-5 against D1 (FCS) teams and has gotten beat 72-0, 63-43, 38-30, 70-35, and 69-28. That’s good for an average final score of 62.4-27.2. Not really ideal.

 

[Techster]

Yeah… probably not. The coach at Presbyterian now who was famous for doing this in high school is 0-5 against D1 (FCS) teams and has gotten beat 72-0, 63-43, 38-30, 70-35, and 69-28. That’s good for an average final score of 62.4-27.2. Not really ideal.

Wait until that coach gets his guys though...

 

[TromboneJacket]

Until the defense stops half (or *shocking* more than half) of the other team's drives, we should be doing it every single time. And no more punts if we aren't pinned deep.

/

I’d just keep doing onside kicks until the percentage of drives without giving up a touchdown exceeds the percentage of onside kicks recovered. Heck, if the defense is going to be that bad, we may want to broaden our definition of 4-down territory. Why punt if our defense is going to give up a touchdown either way?

 

[Fatmike91]

I’d just keep doing onside kicks until the percentage of drives without giving up a touchdown exceeds the percentage of onside kicks recovered. Heck, if the defense is going to be that bad, we may want to broaden our definition of 4-down territory. Why punt if our defense is going to give up a touchdown either way?

Exactly right.

/

 

[Fatmike91]

Yeah… probably not. The coach at Presbyterian now who was famous for doing this in high school is 0-5 against D1 (FCS) teams and has gotten beat 72-0, 63-43, 38-30, 70-35, and 69-28. That’s good for an average final score of 62.4-27.2. Not really ideal.

Lol. If you got beat 72-0 how many times did you kickoff onsides? Once the whole game? And that’s their issue…

/

 

[stech81]

Wait until that coach gets his guys though...

Everyone seems to forget it takes 7 years to rebuild a defense after you move from the 3O to the offense we are running. ( or maybe that was the offense only)

 

[gtrower]

Yeah… probably not. The coach at Presbyterian now who was famous for doing this in high school is 0-5 against D1 (FCS) teams and has gotten beat 72-0, 63-43, 38-30, 70-35, and 69-28. That’s good for an average final score of 62.4-27.2. Not really ideal.

Read a story several years back where he said a lot of his philosophy was based on HS kickers/punters being unreliable. I imagine his strategy is tweaked these days with better specialists (presumably) at his disposal.

 

[FlatsLander]

Even if other teams key in on the onside kick design, the ball has a ton of spin until it pops up (where we've caught it the last 2 times), so it may still be up for grabs being so tough to field. If it were up to me, we would always at least line up in the onside formation, then either kick onside or deep like the one against UVA. Another option is to have the kicker boom the kick directly at someone on the front line of the receiving team and hope they can't catch it and we get the rebound/loose ball.

 

[JacketOff]

Lol. If you got beat 72-0 how many times did you kickoff onsides? Once the whole game? And that’s their issue…

/

Yes pick the one outlier of the bunch to make half of your point. You said we shouldn’t punt either. In the 72-0 game Pres. was 2-8 on 4th down.

In the 63-43 loss, they jumped out to a 23-0 lead. To that point their opponent, Dayton, had mustered 10 plays for 12 total yards. Instead of trusting his defense who had played well, he kicked another onside kick which they didn’t recover, and Dayton score a touchdown on a short field their ensuing possession. Presbyterian got a safety their next possession, and on the safety kickoff, they tried another onside kick, which again led to a touchdown. So after being up 23-0 in the first quarter, instead of putting pressure on an offense who had done nothing all day, he handed them free field position and Dayton went on to score 49 unanswered points. Seems pretty smart huh?

In the 38-30 game they turned it over on downs twice in their own territory in the first half which led to a field goal and a touchdown. One of those downs turnovers was on 4th and 15 from their own 11 yard line. They outgained their opponent by about 150 yards, and had 9 more first downs. One of their onside kicks in the first half led to a short field and an opposing touchdown. Their defense played a good game, and had their coach not been a moron they would’ve won the game.

How did we go from wanting to slow the game down so we didn’t get blown out as bad against Clemson last year to being okay with getting beat 72-0 as long as we go for it on 4th down a lot and kick onside?

 

[CuseJacket]

Should we be doing this more?

Even if other teams key in on the onside kick design, the ball has a ton of spin until it pops up (where we've caught it the last 2 times), so it may still be up for grabs being so tough to field. If it were up to me, we would always at least line up in the onside formation, then either kick onside or deep like the one against UVA. Another option is to have the kicker boom the kick directly at someone on the front line of the receiving team and hope they can't catch it and we get the rebound/loose ball.

I had the following typed but never completed my post:

Based on what we saw the last 3 kickoffs, why not make the onside formation our default kickoff strategy?

Can someone enlighten me on the counter to this strategy i.e., if Jude just consistently tries to pin the opponent deep and inside the 25? I've not kept up the the kickoff fair catch rules, and that's one thing that gives me pause. Otherwise, why not force the opponent's onside return unit onto the field every time, effectively making it so that they cannot block our coverage team on a semi-traditional kickoff?

 

[tmhunter52]

A quick internet check tells me that the average success rate of onside kicks in college is 23.8% (over the years 2014-2020). Given that value, the likelihood of going 5-for-5 is 0.076%, or 1 in 1309. Or to put in another way, Kelley's performance is just over four standard deviations above the expected success rate of 1.19 recoveries on 5 attempts. That puts him in the 99.994th percentile of kickers.

So no, he is probably not human. All hail the harbinger of our alien/robot overlords!

I wish I could do math like that…

 

[jgtengineer]

I had the following typed but never completed my post:

Can someone enlighten me on the counter to this strategy i.e., if Jude just consistently tries to pin the opponent deep and inside the 25? I've not kept up the the kickoff fair catch rules, and that's one thing that gives me pause. Otherwise, why not force the opponent's onside return unit onto the field every time, effectively making it so that they cannot block our coverage team on a semi-traditional kickoff?

If they had someone back to field it and called a fair catch it owuld have been at the 25, so no different than a touch back. But sicne they had no one back there and it hit in the field of play it was a live ball. The issue is if he catches it bad its going straight out of bounds.

In truth if he can do that every time... i line up that way every time. You never know when you catch them sleeping on either end. It'd be a money ball play.

 

[FlatsLander]

I had the following typed but never completed my post:

Can someone enlighten me on the counter to this strategy i.e., if Jude just consistently tries to pin the opponent deep and inside the 25? I've not kept up the the kickoff fair catch rules, and that's one thing that gives me pause. Otherwise, why not force the opponent's onside return unit onto the field every time, effectively making it so that they cannot block our coverage team on a semi-traditional kickoff?

Can a returner call a fair catch if the ball hits the ground first?