After years of putting up with Fabris’ directional kickoff bullshit, up-and-down coverage teams and the frustration of watching what seems like most of America fielding kickers who can put kickoffs in the end zone more often than not, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to hear a Georgia head coach admit the obvious.
“It’s like an 80 percent chance if you start inside the 20, you do not score,” Smart said. “So 80 percent of offenses cannot function 80 yards downfield. So you’ve got touchbacks like Auburn’s guy (Daniel Carlson at 79.2 percent) has every time or you pin them inside the 20, there’s an 80 percent chance they’re not getting points. We weren’t behind that 20-yard line, we weren’t behind that fence very often last year. And some of that had to do with the coverage too, not just kickers.”
Yeah, I know touchbacks come out to the 25, but you get what Kirby is saying there. Besides, one thing’s for sure. Nobody’s ever run back a touchback for six points.
I don’t care who kicks off, just that the results are an improvement on 2016.
Georgia ranked 65th nationally in touchback percentage at 35.82 percent, according to CFBstats.com. Blankenship, who made 14 of 18 field goals, had touchbacks on 38.2 percent of kickoffs. Marvin had touchbacks on 49.3 percent of his kickoffs last year.
Wofford averaged giving up 22.2 yards per kickoff return while Georgia allowed 23.8.
May the best kicker win.
Get The Picture 
I don’t know if he will compete for the job this year, but the Buce kid from GAC kicked the ball consistently deep into or through the end zone the last couple of years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him join the competition in the fall.
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The more, the merrier.
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My understanding is that he had some D1 offers, so I have to assume the staff told him to come and be ready to compete.
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Rodrigo had better stock up on green tees.
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Senator, I appreciate that the stupidity of our new head coach is so easily dismissed with a simple “Yeah, I know touchbacks come out to the 25, but you get what Kirby is saying there.” but I am very concerned that NotSo Smart played in the era when safeties led with their helmets. Is there even the most casual of follower here that does not know that the ball is spotted on the 25 yard line? Not arguing with the sentiment but this on the job training is taking a little longer than it should. I guess we will not take him literally but we have to take him seriously. Just damn
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I think you need to read Smart’s quote more carefully: “So you’ve got touchbacks like Auburn’s guy (Daniel Carlson at 79.2 percent) has every time or you pin them inside the 20…”
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Dude lighten the fuck up
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Some folks just can’t.
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Yeah, well like I have been saying in these pages for years, why the heck CAN’T we see the value in a kicker who can do just that? Kick it over everyone’s head and reduce the runback potential to zero. We seem all orgasmic about recruiting a 358 lb guard, but somehow can’t connect with the fact that the freakin’ kicking game is a good bit more important to the outcome of the game than a couple of plays where a guard misses a block.
Any head coach who thinks you solve this problem with walk-ons is a certifiable idiot. And deserves to get his ass handed to him. I hope Smart has better brains than that.
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What I don’t understand is why fans always think we choose directional kicks, or shorter kicks, and could just slam it through the back of the end zone if we wanted to. Maybe we don’t try hard enough to get Carlson-level kickers (there are very, very few out there, and high school kicking is different). That’s a criticism I could see. But it makes me crazy when our fans act as if it’s our STRATEGY to have kicks returned. Everybody wants touchbacks. Being able to get them is another matter. To me it’s the same as arguing that if we don’t score a touchdown on every drive, that means we decided not to score on those drives.
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Sax, I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but when it comes to directional kicks, I have to tell you I’ve always thought Fabris did choose to go that route, damn the consequences.
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I may be misreading, but my understanding of what Richt said (and said at other times) is that if you’re not dang sure you can kick it out, you’d better plan to have coverage, which means kicking it to a spot. Of course our coverage was always awful. But Richt said (again, my understanding) that if he just tried to kick it out, and it didn’t go, we were more at risk of a run back. This is one I’ve always wanted clarified. I just can’t believe even a DUMB coach (and coaches can be very mule-headed in football) would have the option of touch-backs and choose to offer a return.
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There’s nothing wrong with attempting to kick it deep and covering it if it does get returned. Covering kicks is about doing your job … something we haven’t done consistently in a while.
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Think the Tenn result would have been different if we would have kicked it in the end zone?
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If we had a player capable of booting it 80-90 yards, the Tennessee game would not have been the only one to turn out differenly. 😉
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Yep, kicking from the 20 had a major impact on that game. The BS call on one player when they didn’t call it on TN with 3-4 players on the field when celebrating (and one was in street clothes…how the hell do you miss that?)
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Because SEC officiating is corrupt … that’s why
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i have more of a problem with our dumb@ss kick returners returning kicks out of the endzone…to the 16 yard line. If we take a knee, we get the ball on the 25.
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I hear you on there are not that many out there, but most of the teams the Dawgs played in 2016 had kickers that kicked it through the endzone, Just sayin’.
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