BREAK DOWN OF BREAKDOWNS
Georgia has felt the damage from eight “catastrophic” special-teams plays this season. Catastrophic plays are defined as plays that directly or indirectly result in opponents’ points or take points off the scoreboard for your own team.
Date; Opponent; Outcome; Plays
Aug. 31; at Clemson; L, 38-35; (1) High field-goal snap mishandled
Sept. 7; vs. South Carolina; W, 41-30; (2) Dropped punt snap; Gamecocks follow with TD pass.
Sept. 21; vs. North Texas; W, 45-21; (3) 99-yard kickoff return for TD; (4) punt block for TD.
Oct. 5; at Tennessee; W, 34-31 (OT); (5) Blocked punt for TD
Oct. 19; at Vandy; L, 31-27; (6) Fake FG play for TD; (7) muffed punt; (8) mishandled high punt snap
Georgia fans already were beating drums for the Bulldogs to designate a special-teams coordinator well before Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt. Then Georgia had three more catastrophic breakdowns against the Commodores, which led to 21 points in a 31-27 loss.
Now it’s hard to hear one’s thoughts for all the clamor.
Those three breakdowns — a fake-field-goal play for a touchdown, a muffed punt return and an over-the-head punt snap — increased the Bulldogs’ total to eight “catastrophic” special-teams plays this season.
Catastrophic plays in football vernacular are defined as plays that directly or indirectly result in opponents’ points or take points off the scoreboard for your own team.
The general goal for teams is to go a whole season without one such play. To have more than a couple is not good. Eight in seven games is abysmal.
Nevertheless, Georgia coach Mark Richt remains staunch in his belief that the system the Bulldogs employ for coaching special teams isn’t the problem.
“I think you’ve got to look at everything in totality,” Richt said earlier this week. “Obviously when things go wrong, they cost you (field) position or whatever it is, and it’s a huge deal. But whether you have a special-teams coach or don’t have a special-teams coach, you’ve still got to field the punt, you’ve got to snap the ball, you’ve got to catch the snap.”
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, their issues have run the gamut. It started in the first game of the season when a high snap on a chip-shot field-goal attempt late in the third quarter prevented Georgia from getting off the attempt in a game the Bulldogs lost by three points.
Since then the Bulldogs have given up a kickoff return for a touchdown, two punt blocks for touchdowns, a fake-field-goal try for a touchdown and all manner of snap mishaps.
The growing belief is that such mistakes could be prevented, or at least less prevalent, if the Bulldogs employed a dedicated special-teams coordinator. Richt utilizes a coaching model in which the various special teams’ disciplines are divided among six assistants. For instance, one assistant handles the punt team, while another handles punt return/block, another kickoff return, and so on.
Once the common model in college football, that no is longer the standard.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s examination of the 125 FBS football programs, 98 teams — or 78.4 percent — have a coach designated to coach special teams. In 17 of those cases that coach has no other responsibilities. Eighty-one special-teams coaches also coach a position on offense or defense. The highest number of those (26) oversee tight ends. Twenty-seven teams — or 21.6 percent — do not have a designated special-teams coach.
Closer to home, 10 of the 14 SEC teams have a special-teams coach. Arkansas, Mississippi State and Missouri handle it by committee, like Georgia.
“It’s the way we’ve always done it,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban, who has tight ends coach Bobby Williams coordinate special teams. “Other than the offensive line coach, the offensive coordinator, the quarterback coach and the defensive coordinator, the rest of our staff coaches the special teams, as well as myself. Our coordinator does all the background, all the work, all the game-planning. When we have a special-teams meeting, four other coaches and him and me are kind of the special-teams coaches.”
Georgia’s set-up is not radically different. Tight ends coach John Lilly’s specific area is the punt team, but he also handles kickoff returns during games (while wide receivers coach Tony Ball is in the coaches’ box) and he conducts meetings with the placekickers, punters, snappers and holders. Starting this season, Richt also is directly involved in meetings with and evaluations of Georgia’s kickers.
Paul Johnson employed a similar set-up at Georgia Tech until recently. In 2012, after a couple of seasons of poor special-teams play, Johnson grudgingly gave in and hired a full-time coordinator, bringing in Dave Walkosky from the Canadian Football League.
The results are inconclusive. The Yellow Jackets generally are performing better on special teams. They had two kickoff returns for touchdowns last season after not having one since 1998. Overall this season, they’re somewhat middle of the road: 44th in net punting, 46th in kickoff returns, and 5-of-8 on field goals. One high point for the Jackets is that Chris Milton leads the country in blocked punts, with three.
“The positives would be it’s probably better for the kickers in practice and those kind of people because they have a guy directly responsible,” Johnson said Tuesday. “… You can say whatever you want. You just look at the stats and say, ‘hey are we better or are we worse or are we whatever than you were.’ That’s really what I tend to do. (But) the kicking game’s going to be a lot better when you’ve got a better kicker.
“It’s just common knowledge. … If your return guy’s better, you’re going to be better. You can have the greatest scheme in the world, if I’m returning kickoffs, it’s not going to be too good.”
At least some of the issue has to be attributed to practice. The NCAA’s 20-hour-a-week rule limits how much time teams can practice and train. So how much of that is devoted to special teams depends on the program.
“I feel like we probably spend more time on it than most other schools do,” said Arthur Lynch, fifth-year senior who is on Georgia’s punt and placement-kicking units. “I know in terms of meetings we definitely do, talking to guys who play elsewhere. It’s not lack of focus. The coaches here definitely put an emphasis on it and think it’s important.”
Georgia’s kickers, snappers and holders spend the entire practice every day honing their craft on the lower fields at football complex. Their work is chronicled by video but otherwise unsupervised. They join the rest of the team at designated periods for full-speed, live-action work.
Lynch and other specialists insist the burden lies with them. Richt doesn’t seem close to changing.
“What does (a high snap) have to do with whether you have a special-teams coordinator or not?” he said. “Those are just things you need to execute, the basic fundamentals of it. And those guys are very capable of it. I do have faith that they can get the job done.”
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