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Are Special Teams Not Important At Arkansas?

Started by bollweevil, September 26, 2017, 03:51:44 pm

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bollweevil

After checking the athletic websites of all 14 SEC schools, only two – Arkansas and LSU – do not list a special teams coach as part of their staff. Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and South Carolina all list Special Teams Coordinators (along with offensive and defensive coordinators) on their staffs.  The others have at least one assistant whose duties include special teams. This might explain a few telling stats about the Razorbacks early in the season. Our opponents are averaging 14.0 yards per punt return while we average 0.0. We're giving up 14 yards of field position on average for every exchange of punts.  that may not seem like a lot, but over the course of a game, it adds up. Our opponents are averaging 25.3 yards per kickoff return while Arkansas is averaging 19.5, so we again are losing field position on every kick.  Our opponents are 3-3 on field goals, we are 0-2. Admittedly that's a small sample, but feel free to draw your own conclusions. One of my earliest memories of Razorback football was of Frank Broyles talking about the importance of the kicking game. He traditionally devoted the first third of every practice to special teams. Our current staff (among its many shortcomings) doesn't seem to grasp the importance of special teams.

DLUXHOG

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HardCore

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shotgun7

John L Smith was the special teams coach for BP was he not?

bphi11ips

Keith Burns' son, Tanner, is quality control coach for special teams.  Tanner does a great job.  He's going to be a very good coach one day.
Life is too short for grudges and feuds.

radar


davglo35

Special teams are 33% of the game. Remember how dangerous Joe Adams was? Special teams help your offense and defense if they are outstanding. They hurt you if they are sub-par.
Let's say we are playing a team that is equal to us in talent and coaching and we get tbe ball with 1 minute left on our 40 yd line. The game is tied. The quality of the FG unit determines how many yards you need to get the game won. Special teams can win or lose several games a season.

3kgthog

Quote from: bphi11ips on September 26, 2017, 08:26:01 pm
Keith Burns' son, Tanner, is quality control coach for special teams.  Tanner does a great job.  He's going to be a very good coach one day.

What special teams have you been watching?

bphi11ips

September 26, 2017, 09:55:59 pm #8 Last Edit: September 26, 2017, 10:20:40 pm by bphi11ips
Quote from: radar on September 26, 2017, 09:27:48 pm
What does a quality control coach do?

Whatever the NCAA says he can do.
Life is too short for grudges and feuds.

Wildhog

Quote from: shotgun7 on September 26, 2017, 07:45:01 pm
John L Smith was the special teams coach for BP was he not?

Yes, and as terrible as he was as a head coach, he was an outstanding special teams coordinator.
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GoHogs1091

Poor special teams play has been a problem here for awhile.  The last time special teams play was consistently good was when Coach Hatfield was our Coach.  Ever since then, it has been mediocre.  Just a reflection of the mediocre Razorback head coaching that has been prevalent after Coach Hatfield.

It needs to get fixed.  In close ball games, special teams play is often the difference in who wins or who loses the game.

Porkchop#1

Quote from: Wildhog on September 26, 2017, 09:57:06 pm
Yes, and as terrible as he was as a head coach, he was an outstanding special teams coordinator.
And didn't he win more games his one year than CBB did his first year?  Given how the Bielema error has turned out, maybe we should have just kept ole JLS.  Couldn't have been much worse.

farmhawg

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bphi11ips

Quote from: GoHogs1091 on September 26, 2017, 10:17:32 pm
Poor special teams play has been a problem here for awhile.  The last time special teams play was consistently good was when Coach Hatfield was our Coach.  Ever since then, it has been mediocre.  Just a reflection of the mediocre Razorback head coaching that has been prevalent after Coach Hatfield.

It needs to get fixed.  In close ball games, special teams play is often the difference in who wins or who loses the game.

I've said for twenty-five years that Jack Crowe changed the culture of Arkansas football over night. 30 years of fundamentally sound football rooted in Robert Neyland and Bobby Dodd disappeared like a fart in the wind. I always envied Virgina Tech for having Frank Beamer.

Arkansas is not unique in eroding special teams play. The further we move towards 7 on 7 and 40 plus per game scoring averages, the less head coaches seem to care about field position and giving up a big special teams play here or there.  And 3 points doesn't seem like much. Until you need it. Ask Bobby Bowden.

Teams like Arkansas also have to make decisions about whether to put its best players in harm's way on kick returns and special teams and whether to rest them. A&M didn't subscribe to that theory on kick returns. Special teams also are a place to give highly recruited athletes playing time to keep them engaged and cut their teeth as underclassmen. If you're Alabama, you have plenty of 5 star athletes laying around.  Alabama's special teams are full of them. At Arkansas we get one every five years, so we expect them to start right off the bus and have an impact like Shawn Andrews or Darren McFadden.

As with both lines, Arkansas's depth problem impacts special teams. Right now they seem to be works-in-progress. 
Life is too short for grudges and feuds.

bville_hog

we were much better at special team with BP.  Bret doesn't not care about special teams it is obvious by the way the perform.  If you want to compete with 3 star talent again 4-5 star schools, solid special teams is where you need to start.

WaltonCollege

Been wondering this for years my friend, is our budget too small lol. Usually most/all top tier programs P-5s have someone who eats/breathes/lives special teams all day. He has sole responsibility and ownership if it fails, like a business. Bielema hands out different pieces to diff coordinator and they're all worried about their real jobs like 'why is Austin Allen only getting .7 seconds to throw' and fall asleep on special teams and it gets scrambled into a big Mumbo Jumbo and Hedlund can't kick and Cornelius would always just fair catch and Stewart can't break through and it's just idk man.

BoynamedWooPigSooie

We really should fire the guy that handles special teams. Oh wait, doesn't Dumplin do that?
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Tejano Jawg

After the Aggie game last Saturday, I was looking for a thread titled "How many times have we allowed a kickoff return TD that has broken our back?"

Several game-killers come to mind.
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Cave City Joe

I would be happy if we could just put it in the back of the end zone on kickoffs.  That alone would have beat Ta&m.
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311Hog

i am not surprised a bit that the special teams are a rudderless ship. it is real bad.

by contrast i bet Saban spends as much if not more time on special teams than he does on O and D. and it shows.

ErieHog

Quote from: WaltonCollege on September 27, 2017, 01:22:00 am
Been wondering this for years my friend, is our budget too small lol. Usually most/all top tier programs P-5s have someone who eats/breathes/lives special teams all day. He has sole responsibility and ownership if it fails, like a business. Bielema hands out different pieces to diff coordinator and they're all worried about their real jobs like 'why is Austin Allen only getting .7 seconds to throw' and fall asleep on special teams and it gets scrambled into a big Mumbo Jumbo and Hedlund can't kick and Cornelius would always just fair catch and Stewart can't break through and it's just idk man.


There is an NCAA limit on the number of coaches you can employ.

Every single program has some aspect that they could better address with the addition of another coach;  the problem is not financial, for any P5 program.     There is a finite limit on the amount of manpower you are allowed to use to coach your football team.
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JohnnyJohn

Quote from: 311Hog on September 27, 2017, 04:34:13 pm

by contrast i bet Saban spends as much if not more time on special teams than he does on O and D. and it shows.

Except against the old Gus Bus. 

 

Inhogswetrust

Quote from: radar on September 26, 2017, 09:27:48 pm
What does a quality control coach do?

Let me guess.....................controls quality?
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Inhogswetrust

Quote from: bollweevil on September 26, 2017, 03:51:44 pm
After checking the athletic websites of all 14 SEC schools, only two – Arkansas and LSU – do not list a special teams coach as part of their staff. Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and South Carolina all list Special Teams Coordinators (along with offensive and defensive coordinators) on their staffs.  The others have at least one assistant whose duties include special teams. This might explain a few telling stats about the Razorbacks early in the season. Our opponents are averaging 14.0 yards per punt return while we average 0.0. We're giving up 14 yards of field position on average for every exchange of punts.  that may not seem like a lot, but over the course of a game, it adds up. Our opponents are averaging 25.3 yards per kickoff return while Arkansas is averaging 19.5, so we again are losing field position on every kick.  Our opponents are 3-3 on field goals, we are 0-2. Admittedly that's a small sample, but feel free to draw your own conclusions. One of my earliest memories of Razorback football was of Frank Broyles talking about the importance of the kicking game. He traditionally devoted the first third of every practice to special teams. Our current staff (among its many shortcomings) doesn't seem to grasp the importance of special teams.

The Alabama coach over Special teams Coordinator is ALSO their Tight Ends coach. They do not a have a coach dedicated solely and only to Special teams. I suspect with a little research I'd find the others you mentioned are similar.
If I'm going to cheer players and coaches in victory, I damn sure ought to be man enough to stand with them in defeat.

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bennyl08

Quote from: Wildhog on September 26, 2017, 09:57:06 pm
Yes, and as terrible as he was as a head coach, he was an outstanding special teams coordinator.

No he wasn't.

We were good at returning punts.

We were even worse than we've been under Bielema at defending punt returns.

We were adequate at returning kicks (Dennis Johnson is the yardage record holder due to attempts, he doesn't come close on average per return) which we haven't been recently.

We were about the same at defending kick returns which isn't good.

With the punters we've had, us punting has been an issue in a long, long time. With Hocker at kicker, didn't really matter who our coordinator was.
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buldozer

Quote from: BoynamedWooPigSooie on September 27, 2017, 01:28:13 am
We really should fire the guy that handles special teams. Oh wait, doesn't Dumplin do that?
Last I heard he did.... and 3 or 4 times since he has been here he has acknowledged how bad our ST play is an vowed to right that ship.... still we suck in that area. Just another broken promise by an apologist who is just going through the motions, drawing $4.5M a yr, and doing virtually nothing that I can tell to address the problems he personally is responsible for. What a total failure CBB has been thus far at Arkansas!

DeltaBoy

A good GPA and being men of Integrity is more important than winning games and having good special teams.
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WaltonCollege

Modesto is right, any time we are on special teams I'm just waiting for something to go wrong, a bad mindset has been developed after 5 years of mediocrity in that dept. Aside from two successful fake punts our ST have been straight garbage for 5 years.

flynhog

Kick off coverage.............
extra point/field goal........
punt return.....................

Can you imagine Holtz being happy with any of this??

There are several fundamental problems here.
Wins are the only things that matter when the game ends.  The mistakes that happen in the game are corrected by good coaching during the week. A season of near losses means you won every game.

jm

We have had some good kickers at times over the years, but not consistently every year.
Does anyone remember when Hillis was our best option at punt returner because he was the only guy on the team that could execute a fair catch consistently. How about Regie Fish?
Dennis Johnson had tons of kick return yards because he had lots of chances; BP couldn't field a defense that could stop anyone.

Why pretend that special teams are just now a problem that hasn't existed in the past?
We were inconsistent under Nutt
We were inconsistent under Petrino
I guess special teams just weren't important to them either


Porkchop#1

Quote from: jm on September 28, 2017, 03:12:41 pm
We have had some good kickers at times over the years, but not consistently every year.
Does anyone remember when Hillis was our best option at punt returner because he was the only guy on the team that could execute a fair catch consistently. How about Regie Fish?
Dennis Johnson had tons of kick return yards because he had lots of chances; BP couldn't field a defense that could stop anyone.

Why pretend that special teams are just now a problem that hasn't existed in the past?
We were inconsistent under Nutt
We were inconsistent under Petrino
I guess special teams just weren't important to them either
Who could ever forget Fish's gaffe in the SEC championship game?

Or the not scooping & scoring on the blocked punt in that BCS Sugar Bowl game?

I'm nearly positive neither of those will happen under CBB's watch!

PonderinHog