Will the Punting Game Improve?
4 comments so far
July 15, 2009 by
It’s hard to get excited when your own punt team takes the field. Aside from the rare fake, the occasional “running into the punter” penalty or a turnover by the receiving team, it’s usually a sad sight to behold. You’re giving your opponent the football and then maybe even seeing them get a nice return.
But it’s not a trivial part of the game. You’re talking about plays where huge chunks of yardage are exchanged. If you pin your opponents deep consistently, you make the defense’s job that much easier and in turn that can set the offense up with a short field. The two best punting seasons for Nebraska in recent memory were Sam Koch’s 2005 season and Kyle Larson’s 2003 season. Those seasons also happen to be the two most recent appearances by Nebraska in the final AP Top 25 poll.
Coming into 2009, the Huskers are looking to break in a new punter. Alex Henery is a contender and has just a single live punt to his name (which is one more than any other aspiring punter). It came against USC in the 2007 contest and pinned the Trojans at their own four yard-line. It basically set up the first Husker touchdown (making the score 7-7) and kept them in the game for a little while.
Henery averaged 43.2 yards per punt in the 2009 Spring game, including a 28-yarder, otherwise his average would have been over 48 yards. In the same game, Brett Maher pinned the red team on their own one-yard line, and had two more boots that landed inside the Red 15 yard line. He did have a fairly modest 38-yard punt with plenty of field in front of him, though. Jon Damkroger had a pair of punts that totaled 95 yards. All three punters had days that outpaced Dan Titchener’s career numbers, and if they can eliminate the bad plays, they could be substantially better (whether that’s as a unit or with one guy doing most of the work) than what we’ve seen for most of the last three years.
In order for the Huskers to ascend to the top of Big 12 as a team, they need to improve in every area they can. The punt game is just one of them and it looks like it’s reasonable to expect improvement. In fact, given that Nebraska was 106th in net punting a year ago, improvement seems likely. Whether it’s Henery, Maher, or Damkroger, the days of averaging under 40 yards per punt should soon be over.
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darren Jul 15 09
Thanks for writing this, Steve. Seriously - punting matters.
I believe in Henery, in no small part because of his success as a kicker. But, will the double duty cause one (or both!) to suffer?
Also, punting matters because of the potential disaster as much as the kicks themselves. There are a lot of "moving parts" with everything on special teams. Every time we punt, I find myself worrying and then screaming - SNAP! CATCH! KICK! I sort of feel bad for those around me. Sort of.
Exiled_in_VT Jul 15 09
Please update the long snapping situation. I believe Sam Meginnis filled in this spring. Will he hold the job, or will walk-ons Adam Kuhl or PJ Mangieri fill TJ O'Leary's huge shoes?
Also, who will be holding for Henery on place kicks? Wasn't it Jake Wesch last year? He's gone now.
Dwayne Jul 15 09
Darren,
The first time I heard you utter those words, I was like, wth is he talking about? Just breakin' it down for me brotha. Punting and return punts is such a big deal that was nearly obsolete in the past 5 years. NU HAS to crank that up.
RedDenver Jul 15 09
Maybe I'm alone, but a great punt really gets me fired up! I think it sets a tone for the defense on that possession. Think about how a couple of the Koch howitzers changed games in 2005. I'm looking forward to the punting edging us out a win in a close game this season! Long live the punters!