Preview 2017: Special Teams

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Nordin's huge field goal was close to being blocked by Hudson [Barron]

Depth Chart

This section last year was dedicated to bemoaning the departure of impact special teams coach John Baxter after just one year. Baxter's teams had an unparalleled ability to block kicks over a decade plus at Fresno State and USC. While the block parade didn't get underway last year, Michigan did call time out in anticipation of a squib and return it to midfield and recruit an Aussie punter who had creepy Orin Incandenza skills. Last year's preview projected a "dropoff in effort applied" under Chris Partridge and Jay Harbaugh.

Naturally, Michigan blocked seven punts to lead the nation by a mile, got astounding punt returns from Jabrill Peppers, punted and covered excellently, and finished #1 in FEI's special teams metric. Michigan's special teams performance a year ago was sufficient to get me to shut up about how I hate pro-style punting. Some combination of passed-on Baxter experience, Harbaugh mania, and plain old shoe leather from the new coaches paid off immensely.

Now if they could do it again with entirely new dudes, that would be great.

KICKER: IF YOU KICK IT THROUGH THE UPRIGHTS, AROUND THE WORLD, AND THROUGH THE UPRIGHTS AGAIN DO YOU GET SIX POINTS

Rating: ?, but call it 4.

don't forget holder of the year Garret Moores's contributions [Barron]

QUINN NORDIN [recruiting profile] did this at the spring game:

That is a 48 yard field goal that I swear to God would have been good from 70. That thing barely passed its apex before hitting the net. It's deeply unfortunate that BTN never provided a sideline angle, which would have better communicated just how high and fast that thing was when it went through—actually over—the uprights.

So that's 1) awesome, 2) almost as much data as we got from Nordin's senior season (2/3 on FGs), and 3) probably not relevant until it's time to kick a 57-yarder at the end of a half or, God forbid, game. The jury is still very much out, as it has always been for kickers and always shall be until they have a season of efficiency in the books. 

For what little it's worth, Harbaugh seemed positively upbeat about the kicking situation a couple weeks back. New longsnapper Cameron Cheeseman is "fabulous" because "you can visibly see more velocity on his snaps" and Nordin is "really kicking well." This hasn't been a competition, and that's good news. It's been Nordin's job the whole way, so he keeck a touchdown.

Michigan also has walk-ons KYLE SEYCHEL and RYAN TICE. Both looked smooth hitting field goals of their own in the spring game and would likely be adequate replacements in case Nordin's guidance chip fritzes out. Harbaugh said he's going to split the kickoff duties from field goals and Seychel is in line for the former job, FWIW.    

[After the JUMP: ack no Peppers]

PUNTER: YEP

Rating: 4.

IT COULD HAPPEN SHUT UP [Robbins himself]

Michigan also introduces a highly touted specialist here. Freshman BRAD ROBBINS [recruiting profile] was a signing day pickup; Michigan found itself with a spot and an uncertain future at punter and decided to swoop in on a late-rising hangtime machine who blew up too late for any of the mainstream sites to take notice. Kicking camp folks did, and their rankings uniformly had him a top-five guy in the country thanks to his ability to consistently boom 'em high and long:

Also he ran for a 90 yard touchdown on a botched snap last year:

90+ yard touchdown? Sure, why not? pic.twitter.com/5HZAMGqHMv

— Brad Robbins (@brobb713) October 29, 2016

Scholarship punters don't often lose out to walk-ons, and that appears to be the case here despite redshirt freshman WILL HART's presence. Both Rivals and 247 assert that he's the leader, with an "incredible" leg. Harbaugh:

How will the kicking game shake out? You had Kenny [Allen] doing everything.

“Right, right. Will Hart is really punting well but Brad Robbins is the real deal. They’re neck and neck. That’s how—I mean, I haven’t had a freshman punt as well as Brad Robbins has. But Will Hart, he’s not giving an inch either.

Neck and neck might be stretching the truth a little despite Hart's promising spring game. Robbins is a bomber, and he'll be either good or great depending on how consistently he hits it straight and how he does when touch is called for.

RETURN UNITS: CATCHING IS GOOD

Rating: 3.5

not Peppers [Fuller]

The absence of Jabrill Peppers will be felt keenly here. Not only was Peppers an explosive, outstanding punt returner, he was even better punt fielder. Almost nothing hit the ground, nothing was fumbled unless it was at the sideline and immediately booted out of bounds, and many, many punts were robbed of 10-20 yards of roll. I tried to calculate the impact of Peppers's ability to field everything and came up with something like 200-300 yards of pure field position annually. That's incredible, and it's gone.

Replacing Peppers are Some Guys. NATE JOHNSON was the #1 punt returner at the spring game; he didn't do much other than muff a return back to the coverage units. That was a jarring return back to reality after the Pax Peppersica. It's not that Johnson is going to be bad—he's no doubt fending off a large number of contenders—it's just, like, man. That didn't happen for two solid years and it was awesome.

It's unclear who Johnson is competing with. Rivals mentionedKEKOA CRAWFORD and EDDIE MCDOOM, who are both pretty obvious as second-year wide receivers. McDoom in particular showed some ability with the ball in his hands a year ago. 247 says it's a "revolving door" with six different names in the mix, but does not mention the actual names. Naturally, both mention DONOVAN PEOPLES-JONES because duh. There's even been mention that KHALEKE HUDSON got a run out just in case. And OLIVER MARTIN seemed to have a knack in high school.

Unless someone is a Peppers-level talent the thing that makes the most sense is to give it to someone who's not doing much else. That points towards receivers, or recently converted receivers. Johnson and McDoom are peripheral bits right now and 1) can focus heavily on their return gig and 2) would not be devastating losses if injured. Peoples-Jones meanwhile might be just so athletic you have to get him the extra touches—especially on kickoffs.

How this will go is a total unknown. With so many viable options it's not likely Michigan reverts to bad old days; neither is it likely that Peppers just shows up again. A hair above average is the median return; Michigan has some big time athletes vying for these touches.

MISCELLANEOUS: DOWNLOADING THE SPREAD PUNT

Rating: 5

This space has been cranky about pro-style punting for going on a decade now. There were very good reasons for this, graphs that showed a dramatic decrease in return opportunities and yardage since the emergence of spread punting, screenshots of Michigan gunners literally 30 yards away from their quarry on the catch…

…shots of ten-man coverages on game-shifting TDs, and the like. When Michigan signaled a return to dinosaur punting last fall, your author was… cross. Most of this section was tasked with explaining the larger context since missed tackles and some impossible refereeing made their spread punt transition look no better than the Dan Ferrigno days:

The Mitchell Paige touchdown is instructive since he's got to deal with five guys almost immediately and only manages to bust it thanks to a very very bad Channing Stribling tackle attempt:

I was vexed that Michigan would return to the bad old days, and then Michigan disassembled spread punting. No fewer than seven(!) punts were returned to sender, with little downside. Iowa did get a free first down after consecutive running into the kicker penalties, but the second was well outside the pocket and is apparently being used as a canonical example of something that is not a penalty in this year's refereeing points of emphasis. Michigan also gave OSU another set of downs they did nothing with; their mistake there was going hard after a punt on fourth and less than five.

Like turnovers, punt blocks are high variance events that may not recur even if Michigan is real good at getting to them. They're clearly putting in the effort and can expect to terrorize yet more punters. Hopefully they'll get the same level of production.

Michigan's coverage units were largely excellent. Colorado's Jay MacIntyre had a 32 yarder and two other productive returns; he was the only guy to do much of anything. The rest of the year Michigan gave up just four yards a return on their 18 other attempts; they were at 6.5 on the season. A third of Michigan's punts got returned, which was a little high—per the Mathlete 3 out of 4 college punts don't get returned—but Michigan felt that was an acceptable tradeoff.

That spectacularly ill-timed FSU kick return was the product of a missed tackle that didn't even slow the returner down; that was the only return of note Michigan's KO unit gave up.