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- Thread starter ScriptOhio
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
Ohio State’s kickers have a looong way to go after some missed FGs
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Ohio State’s kickers have a looong way to go after some missed FGs
Geez, never had THAT problem before.
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Baylor transfer Connor Hawkins, Notre Dame transfer Marcello Diomede and walk-on freshman Cooper Peterson struggled during live action on Saturday. The trio was perfect from within 35 yards, but when called upon for distance greater than that, all attempts were no good.
Hawkins projects to be the starter after going 18-for-22 field goals, including 3-of-4 from 50-plus yards, for the Bears in 2025. Diomede was 0-for-1 through three years with the Fighting Irish. Both kickers showed distance during warmups, with Diomede finding more success on 50-plus-yard tries, but Hawkins remains the favorite to get the nod in Week 1.
“What we'll try to do is we'll try to create situations like put a certain time on the clock, ball’s around midfield, okay, we're gonna play this out. Offense needs a field goal. And then put him in that situation where he doesn't have a bunch of field goals to warm up,” Day said. “It's like being at the driving range; you don't get to go to the driving range when you're on the back nine. So that's what we'll try to do, and see how he responds to the different environments. We'll look to see how the wind, the weather, hopefully we get different variations of that during the preseason to get a feel for his range and how we can handle it.”
Hawkins projects to be the starter after going 18-for-22 field goals, including 3-of-4 from 50-plus yards, for the Bears in 2025. Diomede was 0-for-1 through three years with the Fighting Irish. Both kickers showed distance during warmups, with Diomede finding more success on 50-plus-yard tries, but Hawkins remains the favorite to get the nod in Week 1.
“What we'll try to do is we'll try to create situations like put a certain time on the clock, ball’s around midfield, okay, we're gonna play this out. Offense needs a field goal. And then put him in that situation where he doesn't have a bunch of field goals to warm up,” Day said. “It's like being at the driving range; you don't get to go to the driving range when you're on the back nine. So that's what we'll try to do, and see how he responds to the different environments. We'll look to see how the wind, the weather, hopefully we get different variations of that during the preseason to get a feel for his range and how we can handle it.”
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
- Day said Brandon Inniss, Phillip Bell and Devin McCuin will be Ohio State’s punt returners against Ball State. If things keep trending in the right direction, “Legend Bey will take the first kickoff back.”
- When asked about Bey returning kicks and earning trust back from the coaches, Day said Bey controlled the response and “the response since then has been much better.” Day said Bey has habits he still needs to improve on and has lots to learn about playing the running back at the college level. “It’s not all been perfect but I also think we see the explosiveness when the ball is in his hands.”
- Day said Bey’s primary responsibility is to take care of the football against Ball State on Saturday. Day said Ohio State’s coaches trust him to take care of the football and let his training kick in and natural instincts take over.
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Jagdaddy
Head Coach
I happened to notice that Indiana scored 52 points today despite only having 365 yards of total offense on only 9 drives and only forcing 1 turnover. Ohio State had 671 yards of total offense and put up 56 points on 12 drives while also forcing 1 turnover. So, I did a bit of a deep dive and looked at average starting field position for both teams (and their opponents) today.
Rounded to the nearest yard, IU's average starting field position was its own 42 yard line. This was aided significantly by 67 and 41 yard kickoff returns and a 36 yard punt return. They only started 1 drive inside their own 20, on the 16, which resulted in their only punt, and 1 on their own 23. The worst starting field position for any of their 7 other drives was their own 39, snd they started three of their nine drives in North Texas territory despite giving up 367 yards of total offense to North Texas. On average they only had to go 58 yards per drive to score a TD, and they actually gained 40.55 yards per drive with 7 TDs, 1 FG (49 yards) and 1 punt.
North Texas's average starting field position was its own 25, so they had to go an average of 75 yards to score a TD, actually averaged 36.7 yards on their 10 drives (a number that might have been a bit higher if they didn't have the final drive of the game ended by the clock), and only scored 16 points. They actually outgained Indiana by 2 yards, but needed to go 17 yards further per drive to score and couldn't consistently do that.
Rounded to the nearest yard, Ohio State's average starting field position today was its own 24 yard line, with 5 of its 12 drives starting inside its own 10, two more at the 17 and 22, and none starting beyond its own 42 other than the drive following the interception, which put the ball at the Ball State 28. So, they had to go on average 76 yards,18 yards farther than Indiana, to score a TD. Credit to the offense, which averaged 55.91 yards per drive (over 15 more than Indiana) for mostly overcoming that with TD drives of 99, 94, 90, 83, 75, 62, 58, and 28 yards, but I doubt that 3 90+, 4 80+, or 5 75+ yard drives are likely against any quality opponent.
Ball State's average starting filed position was its own 29 yard line, which isn't too bad for OSU, and credit to Marcello Diomedes for getting touchbacks on all 9 of his kickoffs. So, they had to go an average of 71 yards, 5 fewer than Ohio State, to score a TD. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to gain 12.7 yards per drive, which seems like a testament to the quality of the Ohio State defense. This is basically a wash with what Indiana did as North Texas made the mistake of taking a kick out and getting a holding call, so I think it's fine.
TLDR and I'm sorry that it's so fucking obvious that it's annoying to say it: If Ohio State wants to win a national championship, it cannot constantly put itself behind the field position eight-ball with its horrific kick and punt return game. That's one of the big ways in which games against teams like Indiana are lost even when Ohio State may actually be better on both offense and defense. I'm not blaming Day as he has, finally, made what should be a good special teams coaching hire, but this bullshit with the kick and punt return game really needs to end.
Edit: I poked around some more to see how some other teams did. Georgia had 12 drives with average starting field position of its own 36. Miami had 12 drives with average starting field position of its own 26. USC had 10 drives with average starting position of its own 26. Texas had 9 drives with average starting field position of its own 40 (aided a lot by Texas State turnovers on its own 42, 45, and 16 yard lines). Oregon had 13 drives with average starting field position of its own 37 (aided some by Boise turning it over on downs at its own 31 towards the end of the game). finally, since they were as or more impressive than anyone overall, LSU had 12 drives with starting average field position of its own 30.
It's only one game, but we've seen this movie on repeat for years and I think it was especially glaring that Ohio State managed to have such horrible average starting field position despite allowing less than 13 yards per drive to Ball State. It's not all special teams returns of course as creating more defensive havoc (negative yardage plays of more than the 1-3 yard running game tackle for loss variety and turnovers) will help the average, but the punt and kick return game does seem to me to be by far the biggest issue in Ohio State's case.
Rounded to the nearest yard, IU's average starting field position was its own 42 yard line. This was aided significantly by 67 and 41 yard kickoff returns and a 36 yard punt return. They only started 1 drive inside their own 20, on the 16, which resulted in their only punt, and 1 on their own 23. The worst starting field position for any of their 7 other drives was their own 39, snd they started three of their nine drives in North Texas territory despite giving up 367 yards of total offense to North Texas. On average they only had to go 58 yards per drive to score a TD, and they actually gained 40.55 yards per drive with 7 TDs, 1 FG (49 yards) and 1 punt.
North Texas's average starting field position was its own 25, so they had to go an average of 75 yards to score a TD, actually averaged 36.7 yards on their 10 drives (a number that might have been a bit higher if they didn't have the final drive of the game ended by the clock), and only scored 16 points. They actually outgained Indiana by 2 yards, but needed to go 17 yards further per drive to score and couldn't consistently do that.
Rounded to the nearest yard, Ohio State's average starting field position today was its own 24 yard line, with 5 of its 12 drives starting inside its own 10, two more at the 17 and 22, and none starting beyond its own 42 other than the drive following the interception, which put the ball at the Ball State 28. So, they had to go on average 76 yards,18 yards farther than Indiana, to score a TD. Credit to the offense, which averaged 55.91 yards per drive (over 15 more than Indiana) for mostly overcoming that with TD drives of 99, 94, 90, 83, 75, 62, 58, and 28 yards, but I doubt that 3 90+, 4 80+, or 5 75+ yard drives are likely against any quality opponent.
Ball State's average starting filed position was its own 29 yard line, which isn't too bad for OSU, and credit to Marcello Diomedes for getting touchbacks on all 9 of his kickoffs. So, they had to go an average of 71 yards, 5 fewer than Ohio State, to score a TD. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to gain 12.7 yards per drive, which seems like a testament to the quality of the Ohio State defense. This is basically a wash with what Indiana did as North Texas made the mistake of taking a kick out and getting a holding call, so I think it's fine.
TLDR and I'm sorry that it's so fucking obvious that it's annoying to say it: If Ohio State wants to win a national championship, it cannot constantly put itself behind the field position eight-ball with its horrific kick and punt return game. That's one of the big ways in which games against teams like Indiana are lost even when Ohio State may actually be better on both offense and defense. I'm not blaming Day as he has, finally, made what should be a good special teams coaching hire, but this bullshit with the kick and punt return game really needs to end.
Edit: I poked around some more to see how some other teams did. Georgia had 12 drives with average starting field position of its own 36. Miami had 12 drives with average starting field position of its own 26. USC had 10 drives with average starting position of its own 26. Texas had 9 drives with average starting field position of its own 40 (aided a lot by Texas State turnovers on its own 42, 45, and 16 yard lines). Oregon had 13 drives with average starting field position of its own 37 (aided some by Boise turning it over on downs at its own 31 towards the end of the game). finally, since they were as or more impressive than anyone overall, LSU had 12 drives with starting average field position of its own 30.
It's only one game, but we've seen this movie on repeat for years and I think it was especially glaring that Ohio State managed to have such horrible average starting field position despite allowing less than 13 yards per drive to Ball State. It's not all special teams returns of course as creating more defensive havoc (negative yardage plays of more than the 1-3 yard running game tackle for loss variety and turnovers) will help the average, but the punt and kick return game does seem to me to be by far the biggest issue in Ohio State's case.
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