• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Game Thread Game Two: #1 Ohio State 24, #2 Texas 7 (9/9/06)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
jwinslow said:
where exactly is this 7-10 yards statistic coming from? Huston booted kicks out of the endzone too, but that doesn't mean it always happened. Likewise, I doubt that pettrey averages kicks that go 2-7 yards out of the end zone (12-17 from the goal line... given your 7-10 variance). I'm sure he can often do that, but I think your average is a bit off.

I do agree it will have an impact, but I don't buy that it will be a very large one. How is it going to drastically change scoring? How many games will be affected by that 5 yard variance? What about the guys who bring it out from the 2 (rather than 3 yards deep) and get planted behind the 20?
Click to expand...

First off, guys catching the ball at the 2 getting planted behind the 20 is very rare.

Secondly, Huston NEVER used this lower tee. Pettrey has been using it all spring and accordingly roughly 85% of his kicks are basically unreturnable. Kicks are generally considered unreturnable if the ball is caught 5 yards deep in the endzone. Certainly doesnt prevent them from running it out but coaches teach a return man if he catches the ball 5 yards or deeper to take a knee.

If your not smart enough to tell that feilding teh ball at the 5 or 10 isnt going to radically improve your starting feild position then thats on you.
 
Upvote 0
BuckeyeRob said:
First off, guys catching the ball at the 2 getting planted behind the 20 is very rare.

Secondly, Huston NEVER used this lower tee. Pettrey has been using it all spring and accordingly roughly 85% of his kicks are basically unreturnable. Kicks are generally considered unreturnable if the ball is caught 5 yards deep in the endzone. Certainly doesnt prevent them from running it out but coaches teach a return man if he catches the ball 5 yards or deeper to take a knee.

If your not smart enough to tell that feilding teh ball at the 5 or 10 isnt going to radically improve your starting feild position then thats on you.
Click to expand...

Third party observation here. It doesn't appear that you addressed the question about the origin of the statistical difference of 7-10 yards with the different tees.
 
Upvote 0
again, where is this coming from? I'm sure the 85% didn't come from nowhere. As for the huston snippet, it seems you missed my point.

As for this change, I said it would have an impact, but I don't think it would have a 'very large impact' on points scored per game across the board. I also don't think most kickers could consistently kick a touchback with the old tee, therefore I don't buy that there will be this sudden influx of big returns. I do realize that drives will start further downfield on average.


ncaa.org/stats

4557 kickoffs
33 kr tds
0.7% chance of a KR td
 
Upvote 0
jwinslow said:
again, where is this coming from? I'm sure the 85% didn't come from nowhere. As for the huston snippet, it seems you missed my point.

As for this change, I said it would have an impact, but I don't think it would have a 'very large impact' on points scored per game across the board. I also don't think most kickers could consistently kick a touchback with the old tee, therefore I don't buy that there will be this sudden influx of big returns. I do realize that drives will start further downfield on average.


ncaa.org/stats

4557 kickoffs
33 kr tds
0.7% chance of a KR td
Click to expand...

Did they have the % of touchbacks, by chance?
 
Upvote 0
jwinslow said:
again, where is this coming from? I'm sure the 85% didn't come from nowhere. As for the huston snippet, it seems you missed my point.

As for this change, I said it would have an impact, but I don't think it would have a 'very large impact' on points scored per game across the board. I also don't think most kickers could consistently kick a touchback with the old tee, therefore I don't buy that there will be this sudden influx of big returns. I do realize that drives will start further downfield on average.


ncaa.org/stats

4557 kickoffs
33 kr tds
0.7% chance of a KR td
Click to expand...

LOL gee do you think that by having better feild postition wont have an impact on scoring?

Man, get over yourself! Stop putting words in my mouth I never once mentioned ANYTHING about an influx of "big returns"

The median kick return defense shows that 20.40 yards was the starting feild position.

I could find no listing that shows how many Kick offs were not returned.

In 1986 kick offs were moved to the 35 Did THAT have any effect on feild position? Sure did. In 1989 Kicking tee's were eliminated on extra points and feild goal attempts. Did that have any effect on FG %? Yep sure did. In 1991 the width of the goal posts was reduced from 23'4" to 18'6" and that too had an effect on FG%

Your out of your mind if you dont think this rule change wont have a significant impact on feild position just like moving the kick off did in 1986

OSU returned 36 kick off out of 44 kicks. OSU was 18th in the nation in kick returns. The median team as ranked for kick of returns had 71 kick off reception opportunities, they returned 46.

By shortening the height of the Tee you drop the distance the ball can be kicked by the same kicker using the shorter tee.

What you think they halved the height for giggles??? They shortened the height to drop the distance of kick offs, to increase the chances of returns.
 
Upvote 0
What that basically does is take roughly 7-10 yards off the length of a kick off.
Click to expand...

So Then what you are saying is that Huston would have averaged kicking beteen the 9 and 12? I don't believe that for a second.

I honestly do not know anything about Texas kicker. Does he have a monster leg?
Click to expand...

His leg is human, but pretty strong just the same, better than last year even with the new tee, go figure. In the spring game he kicked it 2 yards deep into a 20 mph wind and 8 yards deep with the wind (with slightly better hang time).
 
Upvote 0
I'll get over myself when you answer my first question in both posts... perhaps you'll answer bb73.
BB73 said:
Third party observation here. It doesn't appear that you addressed the question about the origin of the statistical difference of 7-10 yards with the different tees.
Click to expand...
It sounds like you have something of substance here rob, so I'd like to hear the source. It is possible to debate your side of the argument without insulting me.
LOL gee do you think that by having better field postition wont have an impact on scoring?
Click to expand...
Again, it will have an impact, but it won't have a 'very large impact' on scoring as you suggested.

05 NCAA Kickoff Return Average by team: 20.8 yards (calculated by averaging the team return averages... I ignored the disparity in returns per team)
96 out of 117 teams average < 23 yards per return

Even if they are catching it at the 5, that still doesn't give them great field position. If there are stats showing that starting at the 25-30 vs the 20 makes a huge difference in scoring then that would be a good read.

in your rebuttal, you are changing the argument to 'did X have any effect on the kicking game?' which is not relevant to my stance. I think it will have an effect, but not a huge effect.
By shortening the height of the Tee you drop the distance the ball can be kicked by the same kicker using the shorter tee.
Click to expand...
really :roll2:
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
No, taking off "roughly 7-10 yards off the length of a kick off" when the kickoff averages 5 yards deep would end up between the 2 and 5 yard lines, not the 9 and 12.
Click to expand...

But Huston averaged kicking to the 2, or more exactly 1.9 per the official tOSU website. On the other hand I do beleive that he could still put it inside the 5 on average with the shorter tee.
 
Upvote 0
xrayrandy said:
But Huston averaged kicking to the 2, or more exactly 1.9 per the official tOSU website. On the other hand I do beleive that he could still put it inside the 5 on average with the shorter tee.
Click to expand...

I suspect that average is calculated by using the goal line for all kicks into the end zone. So it's hard to use those 'official' stats to determine how far his 'average' ball actually went.
 
Upvote 0
I suspect that average is calculated by using the goal line for all kicks into the end zone. So it's hard to use those 'official' stats to determine how far his 'average' ball actually went.
Click to expand...
That's possible.

Even so, the 30% of his kicks that did not go into the endzone averaged the 6.4 yard line. Even a good kicker makes returnable kicks some of the time.

Another thing to note about DKR is that since it is an open horseshoe and southerly winds are normal, there is a more constant wind to deal with than an enclosed stadium. 15-20 mph is not uncommon. Usually if a team kicks into the wind it's returnable and if they kick with the wind it's not.

I also like the fact that Texas averaged 3.6 more yards a kickoff return last year, and about the same on punts. If that carries over into our game it could help slightly. Both teams return kick returners who accounted for 5 40 plus yard kick returns last year (assuming RT makes it), so the odds of a big return should be about the same for either team.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
BB73 said:
I suspect that average is calculated by using the goal line for all kicks into the end zone. So it's hard to use those 'official' stats to determine how far his 'average' ball actually went.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm thinking, since they don't measure 15 to 20 yards beyond the goal line.

Anyone who casually watched Huston saw that his 'average' kickoff was a touchback, and a 'good' one cleared the back end line and was into the cheerleading section.

54 touchbacks on 77 kickoffs is a hair over 70%. I don't recall too many kicks that were so short to offset his 80-yard bombs that would allow the NCAA to reach an avg. position at the 2.

I believe all other NCAA statistics now ignore the estimated distances in the end zone (e.g. a 107-yard INT return 20 years ago would be officially listed as 100 today).
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top