Punt Coverage

[td577]

Well I would say a couple of key items play a success in this number.

1. Punter with good hang time
2. Speed & tackling ability of players covering
3. FORMATION OF THE PUNT----the SHIELD punt formation is key to coverage

I remember the first couple of years we were in this formation, it was brutal and it received a lot of warranted criticism. You have give Bohl credit here, he was willing to stick with something he believed would work and eventually it looked like the best possible formation. It is also fun for the guys who love to hit. I think a lot of other teams were getting the hitting part was fun for the punt team because if you watched throughout the season, there weren't too many all out punt rushes.

Looking back, if I was an opponent, I might have been tempted to rush 10 every time and hope there is a little room for a return man to get a few yards. Obviously, the return coverage schemes weren't working.

[Mayville Bison]

Ben's 10 touchbacks:

Opponent	Quarter	Clock	Score	Distance	Position	Net
Delaware State	1st	12:08	0-0	9	38	18
SDSU	1st	4:00	0-0	1	75	55
SDSU	3rd	3:33	7-0	10	30	10
UNI	3rd	1:16	10-23	14	46	26
S Ill	1st	5:26	0-0	1	47	27
S Ill	2nd	14:03	0-7	4	58	38
S Ill	2nd	5:06	0-10	6	50	30
Ind St	4th	7:53	56-10	1	45	25
YSU	1st	13:36	0-0	8	45	25
YSU	2nd	8:46	14-7	1	51	31

As few as 2 of these decisions to punt are defensible.

While I agree with you to an extent (I could see going for it in 5 of those situations), you really have to look at all punts that resulted as touchbacks or inside the 20. Looking at just touchbacks can easily change someones mind (I probably would have punted most of these in realtime situations).

[Hammerhead]

NDSU was only 5th in average punt return yards allowed per game.

Get your stat nerd fix at http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fcs/current/team/462.

[TransAmBison]

Obviously this is all Vigen's fault.

[bisonaudit]

While I agree with you to an extent (I could see going for it in 5 of those situations), you really have to look at all punts that resulted as touchbacks or inside the 20. Looking at just touchbacks can easily change someones mind (I probably would have punted most of these in realtime situations).

I prefaced the "2" with "as few as" for a reason. That was an intentionally aggressive estimate. 5 is a good number.

You only have to look at all the inside the 20's as well as the touchbacks if you're judging the decision based on the result.

[MNLonghorn10]

NDSU was only 5th in average punt return yards allowed per game.

Get your stat nerd fix at http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fcs/current/team/462.

season was a failure.

glad Bohl and the 24 seniors are leaving.

[A1pigskin]

That's a great stat! There must have been a fair number of touchbacks because the net average was 4.3 yards (43.7 vs 39.4) less than punt average. The Bison had a 13.3 yard average per punt return but their opponent average punt difference was also 3.4 yards (40.8 vs 36.5). We had a very different punt average and number of returns compared to our opponents, but the difference between our gross and net average is the same. The only thing that could cause that is the number of touchbacks.

21 yards of punt returns for the entire season is still incredible! Yes, Townsend had 1 return for 12 yards. Looking back at the box scores this is what I found:

SDSU - 1 for 0 yards
UNI - 2 for 2 yards
YSU - 1 for 5 yards
Furman - 1 for 1 yard
Coastal Car - 2 for 5 yards
Towsend - 1 for 12 yards

This adds up to 25 yards (overall season stats has 8 for 21 yards) but still pretty awesome. In 11 regular season games we gave up 7 yards on 4 punts. In 4 playoff games we gave up 18 yards on 4 punts. Statistically that is a huge increase in a third of the games. I wonder what happened to cause such a huge drop off.

Amazing stat...........