I said in a thread a couple weeks ago, I was giving up hope on the offense and I'm pretty much at the same place with the special teams. For every bright spot (Scott/Lockridge on kick returns thus far), we have 2-3 negatives. Scott and Lockridge seem to have a knack for finding the crease on kickoffs. Lockridge was consistently giving us solid field position against WVU.
Goodman looked like he was finally ready to turn the corner, but I think he may be headed the other way again after the WVU game. I did not expect him to make both long FGs in the first half, but any decent D1 kicker should be able to make one of those. Also, his kickoffs in the WVU were pretty short.
The punting game is still hit and miss. DiLallo is very inconsistent for a senior that has played in a lot of games. He puts our coverage teams in bad positions constantly with poor hang times and returnable punts.
The punt return game is a joke. Let's cut the crap about Espy being back there because he catches the ball right now. I understand that is an important aspect of punt returns, but it does not have to be the only aspect. With our offensive struggles, we need to give them better field position from the return game. It's great that Espy catches the ball all the time, but it does not matter much if our offense is constantly having to face 70 and 80 yard drives for TDs. We're not good enough to be successful in those conditions. It is time to try someone else back there.
Now the special teams have improved over last season (hard to get much worse), but we still have a long ways to go here.
Goodman looked like he was finally ready to turn the corner, but I think he may be headed the other way again after the WVU game. I did not expect him to make both long FGs in the first half, but any decent D1 kicker should be able to make one of those. Also, his kickoffs in the WVU were pretty short.
The punting game is still hit and miss. DiLallo is very inconsistent for a senior that has played in a lot of games. He puts our coverage teams in bad positions constantly with poor hang times and returnable punts.
The punt return game is a joke. Let's cut the crap about Espy being back there because he catches the ball right now. I understand that is an important aspect of punt returns, but it does not have to be the only aspect. With our offensive struggles, we need to give them better field position from the return game. It's great that Espy catches the ball all the time, but it does not matter much if our offense is constantly having to face 70 and 80 yard drives for TDs. We're not good enough to be successful in those conditions. It is time to try someone else back there.
Now the special teams have improved over last season (hard to get much worse), but we still have a long ways to go here.