[NU Sports] Talent

[Evans Schoeman]

Great point about the kickers.  We yearn for the days of Valenzisi, Burton, and Gowins!

I think that a fair amount of responsibility must go to the way we use our kickers (i.e. coaching).  I think of Huffman, who was a fine kicker coming out of high school and became very ordinary (remember his nightmare at TCU?) at NU.

Aren't we asking way too much of a kicker when we have him doing kickoffs, punting, PATs, and FGs?  Not only is it wearing on the leg, but it also requires him to spend practice time on all of those areas and not focus on one or two of them.

And I firmly believe that our tactics of pooch kick-offs and rugby-style punts are very dubious ones that rarely pay off.  Just look at the results.  I would say that maybe 20-25% of the time do they yield the results that we desire.  For every Purdue-like success where we recover a muffed punt, there's a 25 yarder or a Macklin-type return.  Same with kick-offs, where our opponent typically sets up around the 40 yard line (why not just kick the ball out of bounds)?  Yet we refuse to abandon either approach.

If you look at all of the good teams on TV, you will very rarely see any pooch kick-offs or rugby punts.  I don't think that's a coincidence.

...and I really don't think that reflects the talent that we have.  It's coaching.




________________________________
From: Jim Leonard <jleonard518 at yahoo.com>
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 8:23:47 AM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Talent

I agree completely that our academic standards will always make recruiting an uphill challenge - and I never want to see the standards change. However, the one area that has always baffled me is the kicking game. Thousands of young men handle kickoffs, field goals, and punting on their high school squads. There have to be a bunch of academically-minded kickers out there. For someone with a brain and a good leg, a free NU education should be very attractive, yet we struggle. 

Go Cats!
Jim





----- Original Message ----
From: Sportsbiz <sportsbiz at gmail.com>
To: hakirsch at aol.com
Cc: tbng at comcast.net; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Tue, October 20, 2009 8:16:50 PM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Talent

And we are not going to lower our academic standards for football,
basketball or any other athletes (no that Harry suggested that) so the
built-in disadvantage will continue.  However, Fitz is one who can more
effectively sell those football players who qualify that NU is a better
place to be than the state schools that are also recruiting him because he
lived it and he breathes it.  Give him a few more years and let's see the
talent level rise a bit.  The level of the starters will be improved, it
will always be depth that is an issue.  If Fitz can significantly upgrade
our depth so that the second team is not a major drop-off in talent, then we
will be able to compete for Big Ten titles consistently.  I, for one,
believe he can given the tools and I think Philips and President Shapiro
will give him what he needs.
Mark


      

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