Kickoffs

ilovetheoption

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,816
The field goals don't bother me. The first one was a long kick and I think it's fair to just say "okay, lesson learned, that's outside his game range".

The second one was blocked, and while the kick was a little low, C'est La Vie, blocked kicks happen.

The kickoffs though are a problem. This team is going to be giving opponents a short field all season. While the defense did look improved to me last night, it didn't look improved enough that I can handle opponents starting at the 35 and 40 every single possession.

I don't know that there's a solution, other than hoping King heals and has a bigger leg, but this is what I worried about with Harrison graduating, and my worst fears are confirmed.
 

jchens_GT

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
573
Location
Georgia
The field goals don't bother me. The first one was a long kick and I think it's fair to just say "okay, lesson learned, that's outside his game range".

The second one was blocked, and while the kick was a little low, C'est La Vie, blocked kicks happen.

The kickoffs though are a problem. This team is going to be giving opponents a short field all season. While the defense did look improved to me last night, it didn't look improved enough that I can handle opponents starting at the 35 and 40 every single possession.

I don't know that there's a solution, other than hoping King heals and has a bigger leg, but this is what I worried about with Harrison graduating, and my worst fears are confirmed.

Not sure what to add other than I agree. Kickoffs are a liability once again. The defense handled it admirably for a while, but it caught up to us.

We lost the field position battle pretty badly last night but still controlled the game on offense. It will be tough to repeat that performance throughout the season. Poor kicking just stresses the entire team.
 

bke1984

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,446
The field goals bother me a lot. Miss it left, right, short...fine...but those things were coming out looking like a knuckle ball. Go watch the replay of the blocked kick. It was rotating sideways before it got blocked. Those were two of the worst looking kicks I've ever seen.
 

ilovetheoption

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,816
The field goals bother me a lot. Miss it left, right, short...fine...but those things were coming out looking like a knuckle ball. Go watch the replay of the blocked kick. It was rotating sideways before it got blocked. Those were two of the worst looking kicks I've ever seen.
No, totally, but you can coach around it. Johnson will just go for it on 4th a bunch which, ok. I can live with that.
 

ilovetheoption

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,816
King has been nursing a pulled groin. He didn't go in the scrimmage and he's not full strength, as far as I know.

This was reported on other sites, and confirmed by anyone at the scrimmage (he didn't kick).
Dagger. Anybody who has pulled a groin will tell you those a) are really debilitating and b) can linger a long time
 

bke1984

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,446
So we all saw what we saw last night, and I know we had a recruit back out on us that was supposed to be pretty good. But why didn't we go get another kicker before last year when Harrison was a Senior? Just seems like we could have been much better prepared for a scenario we knew we were going to be in.

As it stands we may as well just go for it on every fourth down...
 

bke1984

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,446
So even without the groin issue, had he secured the job? I was under the impression neither one of them had taken it...which is kind of scary based on what we saw last night
 

bigsands

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
169
We do not have a legit, healthy D-1 kicker on the roster and that was a problem last night and will be a problem going forward. Systemic failure.
 

a5ehren

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
457
So we all saw what we saw last night, and I know we had a recruit back out on us that was supposed to be pretty good. But why didn't we go get another kicker before last year when Harrison was a Senior? Just seems like we could have been much better prepared for a scenario we knew we were going to be in.

As it stands we may as well just go for it on every fourth down...
It's a waste of space to have 2 scholly kickers when you only have 85 slots.

We signed a guy last year, but he's hurt.
 

GTJason

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,579
Can Harvin not kickoff? He's got a cannon and we don't need anything fancy. Sure he shanked a punt last night but I wonder how much the video screen affected him mentally when he's a high hangtime kicker.
 

bke1984

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,446
It's a waste of space to have 2 scholly kickers when you only have 85 slots.

We signed a guy last year, but he's hurt.

Like the two or three we give away to walk on scout team players each year?

It's cool that we do that, but it would also be nice to have another kicker right now...
 
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