There was some noise yesterday about how the NU punting game was off, and how great the SU punter was. Four of 5 NU punts were into a reasonably stiff wind, 1 in the second quarter and 3 in the third. Hunter's only punt with the wind went 45 yards, which is not too shabby! The SU punter benefitted from some pretty generous spots when the ball was kicked out of bounds........
Punting
- Thread starter NJCat83588
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Stanford had a (much?) better kicking game. Both kickoffs and punts were higher and longer/deeper. Wish this wasn't the case, but if you were at the game, it was pretty easy to see.
In the post game press conference Fitz mentioned that they punted and kicked to keep Stanford's All-American kick/punt returner at bay.
Stanford's punter really was their MVP. WIth a little help from his zebra friends also.
I would think the best way to keep the kick returner at bay is to boot it over the endzone for an automatic touchback.
That would have been quite a feat given our field position on all of our punts.
Still not a fan of the rugby style punts. Niswander was one the most highly rated K/P in his class. Why not let him just step back a kick it. Stop the 3 step run up punts.
Agreed. It's tricking stupid and clearly doesn't work. Every punter we have becomes mediocre or worse as soon as our coaches get their hands on them. You'd think Fitz would figure this obvious fact out by now. But he's too stubborn to admit that the rugby crap doesn't work.
Yes, McCaffrey, their dangerous return man, had a grand total of -8 on his punt returns yesterday so the punt average (39) was also the net punt average. I'd say the strategy worked pretty well this game. Last year, with Gradone, our only chance was to rugby punt. Let's wait and see how Niswander punts the rest of the season before we jump to conclusions about stubbornness.
Though not as impressive as the Stanford punter on this particular day, I think Niswander was clearly an upgrade over previous years and that a 39 yard net punting average would keep us in most games.
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