[NU Sports] Persa

[Jonathan Hodges]

> Is Williams (the punter) the holder this year?  Are they using the same
> deep snapper?  If so, maybe the new punter is getting more practice
> time than the experienced place kicker.
>

Yes, Brandon Williams (the redshirt freshman punter) has been the holder for
this entire season.  As for long-snapper, redshirt freshman Pat Hickey
started the year but was pulled for senior John Henry Pace after a couple of
games and some early bad snaps.  Fitz was trying to get some playing time
for Hickey to get his feet wet for when Pace graduates (Pace has handled
punt snaps all year) but the plug was pulled rather quickly after some
errors.

Even after that change there have still been some minor issues and it looks
like Williams hasn't necessarily been great on every hold.  But, Demos has
indeed been inconsistent this year even when the holds have been good.  Add
to that the issues on the line that have led to blocks and the FG unit is
having a pretty poor year all-around.

On the block issue - there have been many different breakdowns this year (I
don't usually like calling individual players out, but I'd like to
demonstrate that it's not just one guy).  Against Vanderbilt, it was Patrick
Ward who let a blocker get between himself and the snapper (on a 27 yard
attempt that was blocked).  Against Purdue, two blockers ganged up on Colin
Armstrong and they got enough penetration to get a hand on it - this may
have been a case of someone not making the correct call on the line to help
out with the block at that spot.

In any case, as others have noted it does take a lot to go right to make a
FG and it's definitely not normal to have a unit that hits every single
one.  But, NU has definitely experienced a slew of problems this year and
given the 'Cats' penchant for close games, this has definitely hurt them.
These seem like issues that can be corrected, though, so hopefully they'll
get things straightened out for the second half of the year.

Jonathan