Crimson Red Sports

Myself and bout 2 there have been screaming about our Special Teams and getting rid of the coach. For some reason, most of the other posters remain totally mute, which means they support an ineffective (incompetent) Special Teams coach.



 :wall:

Hmmmmmmmmmmm ???wasn't it special teams that blocked the extra point that gave us the win?

I was just about to point out that, ironically enough, a special teams play was the difference between a win and OT.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm ???wasn't it special teams that blocked the extra point that gave us the win?

thank you Jonathan Allen for winning this suckfest

the layers of retardation on our return team
is off the chain

Our punter was the game MVP. 7 of 8 punts inside the 20 with no touchbacks.

Our punter was the game MVP. 7 of 8 punts inside the 20 with no touchbacks.

In all the many aspects of the kicking game, such as kick-offs, kick-off returns, kick-off return coverage, FG kicking, punt returns, punt return coverage, etc., the punter is the one shining star of an otherwise pathetic outfit. By the way, fire Bobby Williams. He's so incompetent he can't even substitute properly after a TIMEOUT. A really solid special teams coach, ain't he?


 :wall:

We missed a short field goal and could not field a punt or even get out of the way of a bad punt. I put this blame on the players making dumb decisions. No way they were coached this way.

We had several bright spots on special teams. Punting was excellent. Arky had 0 punt return yds. We kicked off 3 times with one touchback. The two that were returned went for 15 and 8 yds which is good coverage. We blocked the extra point that ended up being huge. The short FG they missed looked to me like it would have been blocked if it was not shanked.

Disagree on a couple of things. First, giving up 15 yards on a punt is NOT good. If you do that as an average, you will probably lead the NCAA in punt returns or be high in the rankings. Second, the quality of our special teams have been average to poor the last 6-7 years & who has ben the special teams coach in that same time frame? It's not a coincidence.


 :wave: :wave: :wave:

...
You need to re-read my post. Arky had 0 punt return yds. We kicked off three times. One was a touchback and the two other two were returned 15 and 8 yds. Neither kickoff return got past the 20 yd line. That is good coverage.

Our special teams need work but you can not blame the coach when a All-SEC kick returner makes stupid decisions. The missed FG was kicked solid he just pulled it. These mistakes are on the players IMO.

I can not argue that week in and week out we have special team issues. At some point you have to look at the coaches.

I'm afraid this is a matter of point-of-view.
Some see half full; some half empty.  Both are right, only 1 is happy!

 ;)

(http://s3.amazonaws.com/br-cdn/temp_images/2014/10/12/9d7c2838b80fd1c0974cdecac700d1fa.gif?1413073637)(http://s3.amazonaws.com/br-cdn/temp_images/2014/10/12/3a899f32ceb39d0dfdcf85b835aadab9.gif?1413073564)

Coach Saban is as happy as me about the special teams play.


 :eyeroll:

Every team has a peter call on punts.  It means find the ball and get away.  Also, the punt return man should be helping by pointing out where the ball is.  I want to say this about Christian Jones.  I wonder if his lack of play making on the offensive side of the ball may be a reason he is trying to do so much on special teams.  This does not excuse him from bad decision making.  I just wonder if mentally he feels he needs to do more.  Then when he makes one mistake he feels he has to correct it on the next opportunity.

Are you happy with the special teams play of the last 6-7 years? Should we sign Bobby Williams to a 5 year contract since he is so good as a special teams coach?

Yes.  At the press conference today Coach Saban mentioned that overall last year we had the best special teams play in the SEC.  I was shocked to hear him say that, based on what I see posted on here every year.

I guess he must go by SEC stats and not CRS opinions.  :dunno:

We clearly are making a lot of mistakes on special teams this year, and his point was that they spend the same amount of time on special teams in practice and the players receive the same coaching this year as last year.  But having the best special teams play in the SEC last year does not fit the narrative you hear on here year in and year out about needing to get rid of the special teams coach.

Our punter was the game MVP. 7 of 8 punts inside the 20 with no touchbacks.

Did he happen to mention what he was basing his special teams stats on? Many of the problems we have are not on a stat sheet for the SEC. For example, during the Auburn game it was mentioned that 92% of Auburn kickoffs were not returned due to deep or out of the end zone kicks. Alabama's was 25%. Gigantic stat and a real indicator of your kick off team that's not on an SEC stat sheet. This means that 75% of our kicks could be returned, leading to good field position or even a TD. How about our FG kicking, you have eyes, were you satisfied with the FG kicking of Cade Foster? What about the punting game, how satisfied have you been with it for the last few years? This year we have real punter, but poor FG kicking has reared its ugly head again. Also, I checked some sites for Tide stats on special teams but never found Alabama ranked as the best. Please get back to me.


 :dog:

I don't have access to Coach Saban's stat sheet, nor have I seen special teams stats tracked on any of the usual places.  Either he is telling the truth or he is lying.  I tend to believe him.

:dunno:

He did qualify his statement with "overall", which I took to mean that we may not have been 1st in every category but we were pretty close to the top on most of them.

Did he happen to mention what he was basing his special teams stats on? Many of the problems we have are not on a stat sheet for the SEC. For example, during the Auburn game it was mentioned that 92% of Auburn kickoffs were not returned due to deep or out of the end zone kicks. Alabama's was 25%. Gigantic stat and a real indicator of your kick off team that's not on an SEC stat sheet. This means that 75% of our kicks could be returned, leading to good field position or even a TD. How about our FG kicking, you have eyes, were you satisfied with the FG kicking of Cade Foster? What about the punting game, how satisfied have you been with it for the last few years? This year we have real punter, but poor FG kicking has reared its ugly head again. Also, I checked some sites for Tide stats on special teams but never found Alabama ranked as the best. Please get back to me.


 :dog:

What we got from Sabn on special teams was "coach speak." A sunny, upbeat assessment based on basically nothing. He knows special teams is under heavy criticism, even major sports announcers and Fnebaum are discussing it. You know computers so you can easily find several sites for SEC team stats. I'm a computer dummy & I found them, but not all stats are covered. The stat about Auburn & Alabama kickoffs is something closely followed by say CBS Sports for use by their announcers. Also, what do your OWN eyes tell you about Tide special teams? Do you think they are "good" or #1 "overall." That stat came from Coach Saban's imagination, call it whatever you want, there is no such stat. Please research it and let me know what you can find. I would be very interested in what anyone can find. Something from Benjamin Disraeli:






 :clap: :clap:

For example, during the Auburn game it was mentioned that 92% of Auburn kickoffs were not returned due to deep or out of the end zone kicks. Alabama's was 25.

My memory tells me our special teams were very good last year. Stats are hard to find on special teams but I found a few.

Cody Mandell was one of the best punters in the nation. He had a 47.1 avg and very few were returned. Christain Jones was excellent on punt returns. He had 23 returns for a 14 yd avg. As a team we averaged nearly 15 yds a return.

Going into last year we were all concerned about our place kicking. Cade Foster was perfect for most of the year. He hit all his extra points and ended up 12 of 17 in field goals. Granted he ended the season poorly.

Our kick off coverage was good last year. I can not find the stats to back it up but we consistently had high kickoffs that allowed our coverage to pin the opponent inside the 20.

My memory of our special team play in 2013 is much different than yours.

You mean statistics like:


To be clear though, I am not saying we are killing it on special teams this year.  What I am saying is that every year there are calls for CBW's head on a silver platter, and a lot of those years we do just fine on special teams overall.

All 3 phases of the game will usually have some bad plays throughout the game.  However, for some reason it seems we have always demanded perfection on every play from the special teams, which is quite unrealistic.  Again, this year we have played poorly on certain special teams the last couple of games.  There is no denying that.  But this call to fire the special teams coach every year is kind of like the boy who cried wolf.  Eventually the boy was right, but by then nobody was taking him seriously.

I did notice that Jones did a much better job with his ball security technique this last game.  No doubt some coach drilled it into his head last week, and because of what happened in the Ole Miss game he probably paid attention this time.  That is good coaching, but ultimately it is up to the players to listen to the coaching.

Now, this week the issues were just horrible decisions.  I don't know how a coach can anticipate that a guy who has been returning punts for several years is suddenly going to lose his mind and try to dive on a ball on the ground in the middle of 7 or 8 guys.  But now that it has happened, I have no doubt it will be covered in practice this week and will not happen again this year, if the players listen and pay attention.  Coach Saban made the point today that when they practice punt returns our punter generally doesn't punt it 25 yards into a pile of people.  They have practiced that, but he said they will probably spend some extra time on it this week if he can find a guy to make bad punts.

As far as I am concerned CNS can hire bozo the clown to coach special teams if that makes him happy.  CNS has shortcomings, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Just to clarify though, I am pretty sure you thought our special teams play was poor last year.  Am I remembering that correctly?  Since we all agree that this year has not been up to the standard, let's look at last years stats if we can find them.  I am interested to know if there really is a perennial problem on special teams are just perennial unwarranted criticism.  :dunno:

I love how many of my fellow posters have tried to change the issue. I said that special teams for the last 6-7 years have been bad, not just last year as many of you want to focus on. We are talking about a pattern of special team snafus and screw-ups. How was our kicking game against Auburn in 2013? By the way the FG percentage of made FG's in 2013 was one of the lowest in the SEC. Kinda of important isn't it? Plus, there are no stats for penalties on kickoffs & punts, being penalized AFTER A TIMEOUT for something stupid like too many men on the field, having to call a timeout due to confusion on special teams, etc. However, I did find a site that offers a statistical analysis of all phases of the game (offense, defense, even positions like RB, etc.) with a ranking of each team for that year. The site is a statisticians dream, but it's pretty much over my head since I'm a liberal arts guy & gives me a headache, but it might be legit. I think smithgeneral is an engineer and SUPERCOACH knows computer stuff so they might be able to understand the inner working of these stats.

First, the good news. I think this is Saban's stat sheet. The site shows Alabama #1 in special teams in 2013. Now the bad news, here are the rankings for each year for Alabama since 2008:

2008:  56
2009:  49
2010:   5
2011:  72
2012:  28
2013:   1
2014:  114


I hope some folks will review this and give me an assessment of it with a detailed explanation of why they think it's a legit site or total bull. It reminds me somewhat of the Bill James Baseball Abstract from the 1980's.


http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feist



 :duh:



 ???

We are not trying to change the subject to last year.  We are trying to change the subject to how you call for the special teams coach to be fired every year, when clearly last year was a good year.  :lol2:

Saban said "best in the SEC", to which you said was "in his imagination".  He was being modest, as apparently we were #1 in the country.

Excluding this year, we have been better than approximately 73% of all the teams on that stat sheet during the time period you cited.

One other thing I find interesting is that our 2 best years, by far, are years that we did NOT win the national championship.  I think that means we are on track to win 2 national championships this year.  :dunno: