Kickers

Al_4_State

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Yeah, looks like they missed on Narveson. Assailey has been fine. It can get a lot worse than him.

Assalley isn't good. He has cost us multiple games. He has good stats, but the kicks he misses almost always matter in the end, big time. Culbertson 2.0.

Our inability to have a reliable kicking game is only less frustrating than our inability to have a decent offensive line.
 
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every_yard

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Do we recruit kickers much or do we pretty much go with whoever shows up? We’ve missed kicks in both games we have lost that could of possibly won it for us. Not just yesterday but the last 15 yrs we could of won some important games.

We didn’t miss a kick against Iowa...
 

theshadow

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Assalley isn't good. He has cost us multiple games. He has good stats, but the kicks he misses almost always matter in the end, big time.

So you're putting the Alamo Bowl and the Baylor game on him? All of those misses were from 49 (1 upright, 1 wide right, 1 blocked).

The only other loss where he missed a kick was the 14-point loss to Texas.
 

bradnjen

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It's kind of ironic how Jim Walden had great kickers when he was here. Jeff Shudak and Ty Stewart were both pretty good. Anyone know why Shudak's kid is at Iowa studying to be an engineer?
 
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Al_4_State

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So you're putting the Alamo Bowl and the Baylor game on him? All of those misses were from 49 (1 upright, 1 wide right, 1 blocked).

The only other loss where he missed a kick was the 14-point loss to Texas.

Cost us games was putting it poorly. Only against Baylor did it truly cost us the game.

But in the UNI game, for example, the one he missed keeps us out of OT, and it was like 35 yards. Against Tech last year he struggled, and it made that game closer than it needed to be as well.
 

spitfyr36

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Assalley isn't good. He has cost us multiple games. He has good stats, but the kicks he misses almost always matter in the end, big time. Culbertson 2.0.

Our inability to have a reliable kicking game is only less frustrating than our inability to have a decent offensive line.

Isu hasnt had a reliable kicker as far back as i can remember.
CPR's kickers consistently missed extra points.
Macs kickers missed game winning kicks on multiple occasions.

This isn't anything new.
 

Acylum

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It's kind of ironic how Jim Walden had great kickers when he was here. Jeff Shudak and Ty Stewart were both pretty good. Anyone know why Shudak's kid is at Iowa studying to be an engineer?
Special Teams in general were pretty good under Walden. Seems like under CPR we always had a good punter. With CMC, I can't think of any aspect of STs that has been all that good.
 

madguy30

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Special Teams in general were pretty good under Walden. Seems like under CPR we always had a good punter. With CMC, I can't think of any aspect of STs that has been all that good.

I think it's a little odd that there really hasn't been any kind of attempt at getting a good return man on punts of kicks that I can recall.
 

Al_4_State

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Isu hasnt had a reliable kicker as far back as i can remember.
CPR's kickers consistently missed extra points.
Macs kickers missed game winning kicks on multiple occasions.

This isn't anything new.

Yeah, I'm aware. I was in high school during the 1st Independence Bowl, and at ISU for all the '04 and '05 choke jobs.
 

Al_4_State

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Special Teams in general were pretty good under Walden. Seems like under CPR we always had a good punter. With CMC, I can't think of any aspect of STs that has been all that good.

Kene Nwangwu returing kicks was pretty great, but that was about it, and I think that's a thing of the past at this point.
 

Stormin

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IIRC from what I've heard, kickers and punters even at the pro level aren't really "coached". They're pretty self-driven. I think that's why you tend not to see major 'development' out of them, either they're very good (particularly in-game), or they're not.

Some of that comes to technique as well, like ISU found out yesterday getting a kick blocked by 4 guys that penetrated the line. Can't blame the kicker for that.

You can blame the kicker for kicking it so low that the kick had no chance of going over the line even with perfect blocking.
 
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spitfyr36

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Could be wrong but I think Assalley is 3-9 between 40-49 yards

I remember Grant Mahoney being money from 40+, but couldn't make an extra point.
Equally frustrating. Youd think with our history we'd go all out on finding a solid kicker, but it seens those dudes are head cases to put it nicely
 

quasistellar

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Our kicker is serviceable. Our kicking (and returning) GAME is bad. The Baylor loss was 0.01% on our kicker. The guy attempted two 49 yard tries. One blocked, the other just a little wide.

How about our offense moves the ball just a little more effectively so we get some more touchdowns or get some 30-40 yard FG attempts? If you're relying on 50 yard field goals you're setting yourself up for failure.
 

isufbcurt

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I keep seeing the narrative that our special teams is bad. Can someone explain the reasoning for thinking this. because I don't think they've been bad, I think they have been limited by circumstances.

1. Punts have been pretty good
2. Kickoffs have been pretty good
3. Punt returns have been mainly fair catches but that is mainly dictated by the punt. Sure we'd like to get more and better returns but I'd rather have the returner make the smart play.
4. Kickoff returns are similar to punts in that they are dictated by the kickoffs and with the current rules there is more touch backs and fair catches.
4. FG's while we have had some misses I feel we are still pretty decent.
 

MeowingCows

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I keep seeing the narrative that our special teams is bad. Can someone explain the reasoning for thinking this. because I don't think they've been bad, I think they have been limited by circumstances.

1. Punts have been pretty good
2. Kickoffs have been pretty good
3. Punt returns have been mainly fair catches but that is mainly dictated by the punt. Sure we'd like to get more and better returns but I'd rather have the returner make the smart play.
4. Kickoff returns are similar to punts in that they are dictated by the kickoffs and with the current rules there is more touch backs and fair catches.
4. FG's while we have had some misses I feel we are still pretty decent.
Punting has been okay given it's a backup, but I still wish he'd kick more straight-up and less running punts.

Kickoffs have been fine but that doesn't ask much. When teams do bring them out, we tend to give up yardage/not stop them much before the 25. Kick coverage can be spotty some games.

Punt returns get a bad rep from the Iowa game, as well as occasional muffs at other times. Just catch the ball, we rarely return these nor have a need for them. However, I'd almost be willing to let some of the punts we fair catch around the 10 to take bounces.

Kickoff returns are poor when we choose to take them out, we rarely get them to/past the 25 we could be taking them at via fair catch. We've trapped ourselves inside our own 20 at times doing this, even when we have an automatic way of avoiding that.

FGs kill us long, which doesn't bode well for winning games when we largely love to stall out around the opponent 40 yard line. However, dating back to last season, we've had an unacceptable amount of blocked FGs caused primarily by blocking failures.
 
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