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Special Teams

HuskerLove1

Sophomore
Sep 22, 2018
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We certainly need Martinez and the offense to take a big step-forward this season, but I have a feeling that progress on special teams will be the primary factor to our success/failure this year.

What does the group think? How confident are we that special teams can be a strength for the team this year??
 
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I would like to think Frost has seen enough of kickers getting first downs who can't outrun a grandmother or teams who always start with great field position on exchanges, but here we are in year four talking about a fundamental part of the game for crying out loud.

That does not inspire confidence going forward. Which to me, epitomizes this staff.
 
As the saying goes, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in awhile.

This would be an improvement as far as special teams goes
 
It's highly probable that Special Teams have any where to go except up. The question is how much will they improve?
 
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The new walk-on from Morningside, former Gretna kicker Brendan Franke seems to have a pretty big leg to come in and compete for kickoff duty. He’s 235 lbs I think it said.
IWCC kicker also joined the team off a school record 56 yd FG last year.
Ord’s Kelen Meyer made a 58 yd FG in high school.
Hopefully some big legs will help us get more touchbacks.

Cerni sounds like he’s got some work to do to at least be consistent, but capabale of booming some aussie kicks.

Culp coming back was huge.

I think kicks/punts will be in pretty good shape. Now the rest of it is anyone’s guess, but we sure need to see improvement all around.
 
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All these kickers on the roster and likely only two of them will get to actually play in games (unless there's an injury).
 
I’m having a hard time believing that a staff that didn’t give two sh*ts about special teams for 3 years, will magically turn it around in year 4.
 
I’m having a hard time believing that a staff that didn’t give two sh*ts about special teams for 3 years, will magically turn it around in year 4.
Putting on my scarlet-colored glasses, I have hope. The first two years ST was run by a guy who was ill and probably didn't really want to be in Lincoln. Last year there was no on-field coach. Having a coach with experience in ST and fully engaged with it can't hurt. Plus depth has gotten better, so they can put better players on the special teams. Plus, hopefully there is a shift in attitude where players WANT to be on special teams (like Cam). And finally, where could NU's special teams possibly go but up?
 
It’s extremely important our coaches prove themselves capable with Special Teams. Of Scott Frost’s $5 million salary, let’s earmark a solid $30K (less than 1%) to simply make sure we have enough players on the field and don’t give up two long 4th down fake punt runs (an absolute display of ineptitude).

If anyone was given $30K to make sure those two things happened, I think they’d probably manage to pull it off. So let’s get it done coaches.
 
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