It Ain't the Defense

[RaginDave]

F- special teams with a kicker that's perfect on the season?

Special Teams is not an F-.

Kenneth Almanders as you stated is perfect on the season and hit 16 straight, he pulls the average up.

Thomas Leo as a punter has done a fine job, not great, but fine. He is averaging 43 yards per punt, I think he is doing a pretty good job.

Zylan Perry has done a good job returning kicks for the Cajuns averaging right at 25.4 yards per kickoff return.

Those 3 are doing their part to raise the average. Where UL has struggled is punt return, not that Jacob Bernard does a poor job when he catches the ball, when he does that, he has been about a B or B+, but 3 fumbles in 4 games is unacceptable.

Kickoff return coverage, I think has been pretty good overall, with a few breakdowns.

Punt coverage needs a ton of work.

and finally, kickoffs cannot go out of bounds as often as they have, that too is unacceptable.

Overall, I give UL Special Teams a C, the top 3 get an A and the bottom 3 get an F.

[CajunT]

F- special teams with a kicker that's perfect on the season?

I think he is discussing three facets of Special Teams, Kick Return, Punt Return and Kick Coverage. We have two punt returns muffed and two onside kickoffs fumbled by the same person. The same person has also allowed punts to drop outside of the 10 yard-line, only to allow the covering team to down the ball inside the 10-yard line and force the offense in a hole and having to drive 90-95 yards. The coverage team has also allowed long returns at inopportune times in multiple games.

So, the inconsistency of certain facets of special teams has been part of the problem for the opponent's comeback in the last 2 games.

[cajuns80]

Special Teams is not an F-.

Kenneth Almanders as you stated is perfect on the season and hit 16 straight, he pulls the average up.

Thomas Leo as a punter has done a fine job, not great, but fine. He is averaging 43 yards per punt, I think he is doing a pretty good job.

Zylan Perry has done a good job returning kicks for the Cajuns averaging right at 25.4 yards per kickoff return.

Those 3 are doing their part to raise the average. Where UL has struggled is punt return, not that Jacob Bernard does a poor job when he catches the ball, when he does that, he has been about a B or B+, but 3 fumbles in 4 games is unacceptable.

Kickoff return coverage, I think has been pretty good overall, with a few breakdowns.

Punt coverage needs a ton of work.

and finally, kickoffs cannot go out of bounds as often as they have, that too is unacceptable.

Overall, I give UL Special Teams a C, the top 3 get an A and the bottom 3 get an F.

I disagree on Leo, I think he is the worst punter we have had in a long long time.

[RaginDave]

I disagree on Leo, I think he is the worst punter we have had in a long long time.

Yes. Guess if you compare him to Coutts and Byrns then yes. But 43 yards per punt is not bad.

[CAJUNJUDO]

Or Cadona!!

[CajunVic]

Stover

[ManAboutTown]

Special Teams is not an F-.

Kenneth Almanders as you stated is perfect on the season and hit 16 straight, he pulls the average up.

Thomas Leo as a punter has done a fine job, not great, but fine. He is averaging 43 yards per punt, I think he is doing a pretty good job.

Zylan Perry has done a good job returning kicks for the Cajuns averaging right at 25.4 yards per kickoff return.

Those 3 are doing their part to raise the average. Where UL has struggled is punt return, not that Jacob Bernard does a poor job when he catches the ball, when he does that, he has been about a B or B+, but 3 fumbles in 4 games is unacceptable.

Kickoff return coverage, I think has been pretty good overall, with a few breakdowns.

Punt coverage needs a ton of work.

and finally, kickoffs cannot go out of bounds as often as they have, that too is unacceptable.

Overall, I give UL Special Teams a C, the top 3 get an A and the bottom 3 get an F.

I literally said, sans Kenny. Also, the Cajuns have done nothing in the KR or PR game, outside of Zylan's 1-2 runs, and he's a liability to fumble the football. Kick coverage is bad across the board; Mike said as much. Several breakdowns in each game. Lane discipline has been the worst we've seen here since Hud's last couple seasons. You can't continue to give the football to the opposing offense at the 35 yard line, something I think we've done 4 times already this season.

Special Teams helped cost us one game already and damn near cost us another last weekend.

That's an F in my book.

Edit: Just realized I made the "sans kenny" comment in another thread. Point stands, outside of Kenny, F- special teams.

[RaginDave]

I literally said, sans Kenny. Also, the Cajuns have done nothing in the KR or PR game, outside of Zylan's 1-2 runs, and he's a liability to fumble the football. Kick coverage is bad across the board; Mike said as much. Several breakdowns in each game. Lane discipline has been the worst we've seen here since Hud's last couple seasons. You can't continue to give the football to the opposing offense at the 35 yard line, something I think we've done 4 times already this season.

Special Teams helped cost us one game already and damn near cost us another last weekend.

That's an F in my book.

Edit: Just realized I made the "sans kenny" comment in another thread. Point stands, outside of Kenny, F- special teams.

Reread your post. You may have thought it but you didn’t say it.

[Grantvb]

Stover

Ol’ Red Beard was awesome

[RaginDave]

I literally said, sans Kenny. Also, the Cajuns have done nothing in the KR or PR game, outside of Zylan's 1-2 runs, and he's a liability to fumble the football. Kick coverage is bad across the board; Mike said as much. Several breakdowns in each game. Lane discipline has been the worst we've seen here since Hud's last couple seasons. You can't continue to give the football to the opposing offense at the 35 yard line, something I think we've done 4 times already this season.

Special Teams helped cost us one game already and damn near cost us another last weekend.

That's an F in my book.

Edit: Just realized I made the "sans kenny" comment in another thread. Point stands, outside of Kenny, F- special teams.

Thanks for the correction, I still disagree with you on the F- grade. But I do believe we have issues we need to clean up.

[Cajuns1]

Thanks for the correction, I still disagree with you on the F- grade. But I do believe we have issues we need to clean up.

Well it sure as hell ain't a C. C is average. Special teams outside of Kenny is below average.

[RaginDave]

Well it sure as hell ain't a C. C is average. Special teams outside of Kenny is below average.

OK, we are going off on a tangent, I said with Kenny it is a C. Take Kenny out and yes, it is below a C. I think we can agree on that.

I still stand behind, I think we have seen some good things, specifically just on paper, right.

25.4 yards per kickoff return is outstanding, we don't have a team we have played this year that has that kind of average. Granted much of this is because of a couple of really good returns by ZP, but it is still a very good average on kick returns.

43 yards per punt is solid, not great, but not nearly as bad as most people are making it out to be. Thomas Leo ranks in the top 50 of all punters in the country with at least 10 punts or more on the season. That is not terrible, could it be better, yes. But based on his average, I would give him a better than C average.

Jacob Bernard, I said this in early in the game vs Buffalo to my father, was watching the game right next to me. I said, our punt returner is really good, when he catches the ball, the problem is he fails to catch it cleanly, way too often, then he proceeded to muff another punt.

I don't think our kickoff coverage has been as bad, overall, as others are saying. Yes, we have had some breakdowns overall on kickoffs, but more times than not we have been pretty good. It needs to get cleaned up, for sure.

The kickoffs have been a problem, we are only averaging 58 yards per kickoff, meaning that the ball is being caught on average on the 7-yard line. We have kicked 3 of 28 out of bounds, but 2 of those were last Saturday night. Klotz has 1 and Leo has 2, I can not believe we don't have someone that can kick it at least to the goal line or deeper. The opponent we are facing this weekend has less kickoffs returned (17 of 19) for touchbacks then we have kickoffs out of bounds.

[CajunVic]

. . . Dave, it is a tough task trying to defend here . . . even when you are correct and have the facts . . . PREACH my brother . . .

[CajunEXPRESS]

. . . Dave, it is a tough task trying to defend here . . . even when you are correct and have the facts . . . PREACH my brother . . .

I know you never failed a test with a 30%, but it’s much worse than a straight A,B,C,D, or F to recover from. Unfortunately our muffs have costed us scores. That’s an F, and mediocrity in the rest doesn’t equal a C. Maybe a low D.

[CajunVic]

. . . express, you stuttering . . . sign of some insecurity in your position . . .