“There are a lot of plays that we wish we had back for one reason or another. And there's some we're really excited and happy with,” Fleming said. “Ultimately, the special teams, our job is to put our team in the best position to win. And there's some spots that we have not done that, clearly.”
Notable miscues for Ohio State on special teams this season have included an accidental fake punt that was stopped for a turnover on downs by Maryland when John Ferlmann snapped the ball to Cody Simon; a turnover on a punt return against Penn State when a ball hit Lorenzo Styles Jr.’s leg and was recovered by the Nittany Lions; and another unsuccessful fake punt against Rutgers in which Jesse Mirco ran the ball in a situation where he was not supposed to.
Fleming doesn’t feel as though those plays tell the entire story of Ohio State’s special teams performance this season, considering those are just three of the 272 special teams plays that the Buckeyes have run this year. But he understands why fans fixate on the mistakes.
“The one-off plays, we got to be better. We got to eliminate those,” Fleming said. “Our job is to change field position, create explosives when we have opportunities to, and we've done some of that. We have. When you look at the net field position in a bunch of games, we've won it. And people don't care about that, because the big things can't happen. And they're right. You can't put your team in some situations that we have, and I totally understand that.”
