Michigan special teams by the numbers: plenty bad so far

Submitted by Erik_in_Dayton on

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. 

UMfan21

September 22nd, 2014 at 6:51 PM ^

So we suck in two phases of the game. Great.

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.

pearlw

September 22nd, 2014 at 7:17 PM ^

Regarding the punts on Saturday, I took a look at the personnel for the first two punts by Michigan. The first being the one that was downed at the 3 yard line and the second being the 10 man punt that was returned for a touchdown.

Players on field for both punts(10): Hagerup, Chesson, Norfleet, Ross, Houma, Wormley, Gant, Drake Johnson, Kerridge, Bolden

Player on field for ONLY 1st punt and missing on second: Deveon Smith

reshp1

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.

LSAClassOf2000

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. 

klctlc

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.

Sllepy81

September 22nd, 2014 at 8:34 PM ^

vs Michigan last year and I thought the back up punter looked pretty good. Puntng is one position where you can take a soccer guy or anyone and try them out and they can sometimes match or beat a 3-5* kid out. I don't get it, I'm 32 and can still hit 40 yards with ok to good hang time. Stop giving scholarships and start walking on punters with tryouts. Utah's kicker never even played high school football and was better then our scholarship kicker.