Michigan special teams by the numbers: plenty bad so far
Sam Webb mentioned this morning that Michigan is 123 ouf of 125 D-1/FBS teams in net punting. It made me curious about the rest of the special teams stats. They are below.
Kick return defense: 47th (19.25 yards per return)
Kick returns: Tied at 87th (19.00 yards per return)
Net punting: 123rd (28.9 yards per punt) (in your face, Tulane and San Jose St.!)
Punt returns: Tied at 51st (9.8 yards per return)(this includes Gedeon's punt block return)
Blocked kicks allowed: Tied at 84th (1)
Special teams efficiency: 103rd (-2.22)
FG percentage: Wile is 110th (57.1%). I'm not sure where Michigan is as a team.
And to end on some high notes:
Blocked kicks: Tied at 18th (1)(this is the App. State punt block)
Blocked punts: 4th (1)
Blocked punts allowed: Tied at 1st with much of the country (0)(We're No.1! We're No. 1!)
I couldn't find a "special teams turnovers" list, so I can't say where Michigan's non-recovery of Miami's popped up kickoff puts the Wolverines with respect to the rest of the country. I also couldn't find a "number of players used per kick/punt" list, so I don't know how many other teams sometimes use ten or fewer guys.
September 22nd, 2014 at 6:32 PM ^
what we practice. We must look awesome against ourselves.
September 22nd, 2014 at 9:37 PM ^
because the D apparently looked good in practice and turned out to be good now, so did the offense just go 3 and out all spring and fall except when Funchess was Minitroning? Seriously. I think our D could pitch a shutout against the O
September 22nd, 2014 at 6:48 PM ^
Dan Ferrigno is special teams coach. Why does his name not come up more often?
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:17 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 6:51 PM ^
And these numbers are with our best players (sometimes all 10 of them) on the field: Funchess, Peppers, Norfleet, etc. It's not like there is a talent shortage there.
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:17 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:35 PM ^
But a small correction: instead of defensive tackle #43 Chris Wormley, it was more likely long snapper #43 Scott Sypniewski.
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:42 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 11:38 PM ^
That solves the running back controversy.
September 22nd, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
The punt coverage is the only one where I feel we have a systemic issue.
FG% is going to be highly variable this early in the season. The two he missed at ND obviously killed his percentage.
Same goes for blocks, pretty much random at this point, a swing of one probably sees you move from bottom all the way to top.
Kick off coverage has been good as the stats show, I'd like to see more touchbacks but not complaining.
Norfleet doesn't break too many long ones and hasn't taken one to the house but he's been solid overall. I'll take that. We also seem to take a lot of touchbacks for whatever reason, not sure how that affects the ranking, but obviously that's outside of our control.
September 22nd, 2014 at 10:39 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:10 PM ^
TeamRankings lists Michigan's team FG percentage as 57.14% as well, so as Wile has gone, so have we as a team on this metric, or so it seems. Actually, while a bit paltry, several Big Ten teams have had a more difficult time than we have at least to this point. According to them, we average 1.0 FGs made per game, but so do about 40 other FBS schools right now so it isn't especially telling.
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:32 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:29 PM ^
Has been brutal. I commented in ND game that his punts were line drives. He had one nice pooch kick, but he has not boomed one punt. Killed us on field position for ND and Utah. 10 men did not help, but his punt was beautiful, if your a punt returner.
Not why we lost, but sure as hell ain't helping.
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:27 PM ^
Actually ST might be worse, I hope they can turn it around because field position is important.
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:34 PM ^
What the hell happened to Hagerup? Kid used to have a howitzer for a leg.
September 22nd, 2014 at 9:39 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:34 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:53 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 22nd, 2014 at 10:47 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
Nevermind, meant to reply to another post.