Special teams overlooked in ND-UM game?

Submitted by uniqenam on
I hate to make another UM-ND thread, but here's something that seems to be overlooked a lot in this game: outside of Darryl Stonum (who was emphatically awesome) our special teams were IME pathetic. No one has really talked much about this, but it seems as if we could've easily had the game in hand with a little better special teams play. A few things that may (or may not) have been overlooked during the general bally-hoo of the victory: 1) Zoltan didn't punt well at all. (!!?) 2) Our kickoff return coverage was suboptimal. Two returns almost went for a touchdown, and IIRC one was only stopped by the kick returner jumping over a blocker, who then proceeded to get off the ground and knock the kick returner down. 3) Jason Olesnavage played less than efficiently by missing what amounted to an extra-point attempt that was worth three points. This was a huge momentum killer, as we had just ridden Minor's back all the way down the field for what should've been at least three points. I was also wondering if Brian has ever thought about doing a special teams UFR? Probably not much there, but it would be interesting to see what went wrong in coverages, or who played badly. Thoughts?