Special Teams Versus Vandy

[GTNavyNuke]

Another great ST game. Best of the year.

Rodwell punted much better with a punt to the 10 and one on the one. Great coverage team play.

Stewart has really good hands. That over the back fair catch was very hard. If he had muffed that after not fair catching the one before, his best move would be to keep running to the tunnel. But Stewart didn’t muff and didn’t have any muffs all day. For the one Stewart didn’t fair catch, after the play he made a gesture which seemed to indicate he was mad at himself.

Butker had a 60 yard KO. Now that is news. His average for the year is down to 64.7 yards, 12th in the country. His TB % is 82% (8th).

I don’t agree with CPJ punting in the second quarter with the ball on the 36. It would have been a 53 yard FG which is very makeable (60-70%?) by Butker. The play turned out great by pinning them on the 1, but I’d rather have the points and go up 2 scores (17-7) rather than stay at 14-7. CPJ usually goes for these but probably didn’t in this case maybe since he felt the D was showing signs of life and didn’t want to give Vandy good field position. We traded a lot of punts in the first half. It was maddening.

Our KO and punt coverage was solid all day. I don’t think Vandy has the best return people, but our coverage did all it could and the down on the 1 was great. The other Rodwell punt at 2:05:58 went 50 yards for a TB with the roll. It looked like a low line drive punt that the coverage team couldn’t catch up with. In his post game, CPJ indicated that the coverage team should have been in position……

Very consistently good ST again. We’ll need good ST to win some of our remaining games probably.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Rodwell was the ST player of the week. He certainly had a better game. I don't think he did better in this game (no shanks) because he was benched; I think he always tries to do his best and focuses. It was more likely coincidence. He had some good games last year but wasn't consistent. Let's hope a) we don't need to punt much and b) when we do need a good punt we get it.

The Vandy punter was very inconsistent. He had punts between 3o and 44 yards in the air. Makes it really hard to return since you don't know how far back to go. That's why Stewart had to catch the one over his back; best punt of the day by the Vandy punter.

Someone said they saw Shea on the sidelines but not dressed out. Must be hurt. Bummer.

 

[Towaliga]

I thought Butker had a terrible game. Not only did he have two kick-offs that were returned, but one of them didn't even make it into the end zone before being fielded!!! The two returns made it out to the 19 and 18. Things could be tough if he keeps putting us in a hole like that.

Sorry, but after reading a few of the other posts after the game, I thought we were supposed to be looking for reasons to be negative. GTNN, I agree with what you say about Rodwell for this game, and hopefully we'll see some consistency from him.

 

[SidewalkJacket]

I wonder if CPJ occasionally wants HB to leave it just short so we can work on our coverage. I though the coverage looked great!

 

[slugboy]

I thought in H2 that Stewart was just fair catching everything--maybe he was told to.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I also thought we should have tried the field goal instead of punting. The punt result proved me wrong and I think was bigger in the game than 3 pts would have been.

Great game to build off of. Go Jackets!

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I wonder if CPJ occasionally wants HB to leave it just short so we can work on our coverage. I though the coverage looked great!

No opposing team has started past the 25 this year after a KO. That is amazing to me given where we were before in not getting long enough kicks and then not having good coverage. We have both now.