Alabama 'Special' Teams Woes - How do we fix this?
- Thread starter tusks_n_raider
- Start date
Seeing how this has been problem since CNS arrived. One would have to think he does not put a lot of emphasis on it or it would get fixed.
Any other explanation as to why the kicking has gotten steadily worse?
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I have one - anxiety. It feeds itself in a loop that just gets more and more powerful. They are feeding the wrong wolf.
Neither of these statements are true. Bama has had decent and good place kickers and punters under CNS. They had 8 years under Tiffin, Shelley and Griffith who were decent or better. Even Cade Foster who I know many unfortunately hate was 10-12 in '13 before the AU meltdown. AP was above average, though with limited range, until the NC meltdown. Even in that game he kicked to necessary FGs. Bulovas this year is a decent FG kicker, 11-15, with good range. The 9 years under Scott, Mandell and Fitzgerald were above average. With a couple of exceptions, the coverage teams have usually be above average. Bama has had multiple good-great PRs: Javy, Cyrus, Christion Jones, Maze, Waddle and other decent ones. Even Diggs was top 25 last year.
PKing is not as elusive as a golf swing but like one it can come and go without even knowing why. Programs' PKing success is dependent on the particular kicker. AU who some Bama fans think has a perfect PKing program is having far worse FG problems this year than JB. Carlson is 15-25, one of the worst % in the country.
CNS has given more scholarships to punters and pks than any Bama coach I can remember. If anyone has put emphasis on STs it would be Saban. Do you really think that a coach who would get upset finding a honey bun wrapper on the weight room floor would ignore such an important part of the game? The irony is that Jeff Banks who has a great reputation at a ST specialist and former kicker himself was hired this year (this facilitated by the fact that a 10th coach is now allowed). In most programs, STs are usually assigned to a position coach. Though they don't say it, it is often his secondary responsibility. And they rarely have actual kicking experience like Banks.
I thought Coach Saban's answer to a post game question on the field after a recent game gave more insight into his greatness as a coach/leader. It may have been after the LSU game where 2 XPs were missed and the interviewer asked him how frustrating were the PKing failures. He calmly said that (paraphrasing) it did no good to get frustrated but they needed to fix it. He said the kickers did well in practice but somehow were not carrying it over to the games. He said they would continue to work with them. Frankly, what else can be done?
Will ?Reichard? is supposedly extremely strong mentally. Maybe he can handle the pressure and join the ranks of Bama's decent to good PKers who have been the norm.
Re: Question about Place Kicking/Bulovas
I'm no kicker either, but it just looks like JB has no consistent leg swing right now. It seems like sometimes he behind the ball a little pushes it right, and sometimes he's ahead of himself and he sweeps thru the ball pushing left. (like his first miss last week). I have no idea why, but I would think a coach could get that corrected. Or maybe he just needs more practice reps, or as Coach Saban says, keep doing it until you can't do it wrong.
I concur.
Our kicking game is on life support.
(I reached the last straw when we missed two extra points last week)
I think the argument at this point could be made that the process just doesn't work on place kickers. That's a fair thing to say. The best kicker of the Saban era was actually a leftover from Shula.
To people that think Saban hasn't done enough, he's thrown scholarships left and right at the top ranked kickers. He's landed several of the top ranked kickers (he also missed out on a few). To give an example of the ones he missed, most famously is probably Daniel Carlson (who had his own NFL meltdown). Alabama didn't sign him because they already had AG. There was also Eddy Pineiro who had a great career at Florida, and Brandon Ruiz who Alabama had before he de-committed and they ended up with Bulovas instead.
For the record Ruiz is 40/40 on PATs and 77.8 on his field goal attempts this year. Not stellar, but noticeably better than what Alabama is doing. I don't really think punting is a consistent issue, Alabama has been solid in that area most of the time. Bernier's average is still lousy, but at least he's shown consistency that Delong lacked. It is what it is, I won't dwell on that because Delong's performance and going with a second string punter seems to be more of an aberration than anything else.
Place kicking though, you could argue that something about the situation just isn't conducive to success at Alabama. Yes, the Shelley/Foster combination was alright, but Shelley had a weak leg, couldn't do kickoffs or kick over 45. That's far from ideal. Foster was erratic, he had a strong leg though but he was never really automatic from any distance. There was another highly ranked kicking recruit in there that was forgotten because he never even really kicked for Alabama. Then there was AG, whose struggles are well documented. Then there was Gunnar Rayborn, whose trouble occurred off field when he had a DUI. Alabama even had JK Scott doing some place kicking, if that's any indication of the situation. Then you had Andy, I'm just going to call him Andy. At least he kicked his extra points, but he was another guy with limited range and not exactly automatic either.
Now we're on to this year. It feels worse because there's no JK Scott and Alabama is missing an alarming number of extra points. Bulovas has been kinda ok on field goals though, about what Alabama usually gets (73%). It is just more of the same though, Alabama has some serious place kicking issues and if anything it is like Alabama tries to do too much. Most years Alabama has actually used multiple place kickers, they have gone after transfer guys, they have gone after highly ranked guys, but somehow Saban has managed to miss out on recruiting a single elite place kicker.
Considering the near misses on Carlson and Ruiz, and the highly ranked kickers Alabama has landed, I'd have to say something about the situation just doesn't help kickers perform. What's to say Carlson and Ruiz kick like that at Alabama? At this point I wouldn't bet on it.
Yep.....^^^
In last year's NCG when ole 'Shakey-Leg' came on to the field to try and kick a game winning CHIP SHOT FG.......he looked like he had just seen about 50 Ghosts followed by 100 hoards of Zombies.
Other than JK Scott it seems like every Kicker we sign is shaken up (or SHOOK as the kids like to say) from the moment they put on the uniform.
Agree, but doesn't the fact that the special teams woes are more than just a kicking problem make it worse, not better?
Van Tiffin doesn't have anymore sons does he - seems Leigh Tiffin was the last good FG kicker we had here.
I think we go back to Austin Jones. But we need to get Tua or Jalen or someone to hold the snap for our kickers.. I suspect that the issue is with our holder, not our kicker... I don't know.
Bulovas will continue to handle kicks... while Jones extra points. We just have to give them reps...
Bulovas will continue to handle kicks... while Jones extra points. We just have to give them reps...
During ncg I was screaming at my tv, leave the kicker alone. Way too many players patting him on the back, talking to him, before the kick. Just let him practice his kicks then run on the field.
T
Re: Question about Place Kicking/Bulovas
I was over 95% in my career in paper football. And yes I still have eligibility left.....I say go back and work on the fundamentals.
Could it be that the football gods have said, look, you've got the greatest coach in the history of the game. And he's also the best recruiter in the history of the game. Oh and he's going to be able to tolerate coaching turnover in his staff better than anyone else in the history of the game. By the way, you've also got a ton of money, so your facilities are always top notch. We're just not going to let you have a decent kicking game. I'm sorry. You're going to win a ton of national championships. Heisman trophies, too, and look you didn't have any of those before Coach Saban, right? So look, we're going to make your kicking game suck. And if you really amp things up and have an excellent offense to go along with your soul crushing defense, we are really going to make your kicking game suck.
I mean, that's as logical as anything else. Might as well accept or fate and win every game by at least 3 TDs.
I mean, that's as logical as anything else. Might as well accept or fate and win every game by at least 3 TDs.
And the better your offense and defense become, the more your kicking game will suck. :biggrin:
I think many of us here have a nagging gut feeling that a title will not be won if kicking doesn't somehow get "average" in the next few weeks. Maybe before then.
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