When your punts are short enough that your long snapper is making tackles you have a problem. I think Ive only seen him turn the field over may be 3 times in his time here. Plus he was known to shank a few as well in bad situations.
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2016 season with Jackson.....3 punts returned for zero yards.
2017 season: Opponents returned 16 punts for 195 yards. (54 punts for Koonce and 3 for Wegner)
I'm sick of hearing this BS. When you only kick the ball 35 yards you shouldn't expect any returns. Sometimes our style of play dictates that the punter has to flip the field. You won't be doing that by kicking the ball sky high for 35 yards! If the coverage guys aren't getting down field they need to be replaced or punt the damn thing out of bounds. That's another issue with our kicking game, both punts and kickoffs, seems like directional kicking is a lost art.
NDSU ranks in FCS for 2017 season:
- 80th net punting average of 34.79 yards/punt.
- 114th punt return defense of 12.19 yards/punt.
- 85th net punt return (we received the punt) of 5.91 yards/punt.
- 23rd kick-off return (we received the kick) of 22.18 yards/kick.
- 81st kick-off return defense of 20.95 yards/kick.
- 1st (tied with 57 other teams) with 0 allowed punt blocks.
- 28th (tied with around 30 other teams) with 1 blocked punt.
- 102nd (tied with 16 other teams) with 5 allowed blocked kicks.
- 55th (tied with 30 other teams) with 2 blocked kicks.
- 63rd by going 10 for 16 on FGs.
Couldn't find any rankings for PATs.
Pretty mediocre for a team that apparently has so much more depth than the rest of the FCS. I'll say this on punt returns. The best punting unit in the country was Incarnate Word whose net was 41.75 so that's only about 6 yards difference. I think the punt team was average all year but really stunk it up in the National Championship game, which could have cost us.
https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/...ent/team/98/p2