Punting............

[West Tn Dawg]

Watching replay and aTm's punter is averaging over 54 yards a punt! WOW!
Our punter is avaraging about 35 yards per punt. Thats sad.

[Bully13]

We are like 119th in punting. sad. I'm tired of 30 yard punts.

[Tbonewannabe]

Watching replay and aTm's punter is averaging over 54 yards a punt! WOW!
Our punter is avaraging about 35 yards per punt. Thats sad.

aTm is the best college punter in a long time. The guy at one point was averaging like 65 yards a punt. He would probably start for most NFL teams right now. It is ridiculous that we can't even kick one 40 yards.

[Pit Bull]

Our punter needs to go to punting camp every summer.

[CovertDawg]

Yeah....sadly I am not sure there is anyway to correct it this year. After this many games, a punter is kind of who they are going to be. I think our special teams coaching has been fine ....protect well, cover well....but just not sure there is any way to get a punter to consistently punt the ball 40 yards. This will have to be fixed on the recruiting trail. Can Goodman punt? He definitely has the leg strength to blast it. Saw on his bio "Also tallied a 41.6 yard punting average as a senior"...granted that was high school but just throwing it out there.

[JoseBrown]

Yeah....sadly I am not sure there is anyway to correct it this year. After this many games, a punter is kind of who they are going to be. I think our special teams coaching has been fine ....protect well, cover well....but just not sure there is any way to get a punter to consistently punt the ball 40 yards. This will have to be fixed on the recruiting trail. Can Goodman punt? He definitely has the leg strength to blast it. Saw on his bio "Also tallied a 41.6 yard punting average as a senior"...granted that was high school but just throwing it out there.

Your not the only one wondering if Goodman has even been given a look. Remember when Day was gonna be our stop gap at place kicker? Until he lost that job, to a walk on, because of missed extra points. I know he was brought in to be the next good punter, but dang he is sure struggling. Between he and Shex its been rough, would be nice to figure something out before we play Bama. We give them all those short fields we gave LSU and they will score tds instead of just threes..

[thf24]

Your not the only one wondering if Goodman has even been given a look. Remember when Day was gonna be our stop gap at place kicker? Until he lost that job, to a walk on, because of missed extra points. I know he was brought in to be the next good punter, but dang he is sure struggling. Between he and Shex its been rough, would be nice to figure something out before we play Bama. We give them all those short fields we gave LSU and they will score tds instead of just threes..

Day was recruited as a punter (an All-American at that), not a place kicker. He should have never been asked to to place kick and those attempts shouldn't be held against him. You have to think he'll get it together at punter eventually, especially given his accolades in high school; just a little head-scratching as to what could be giving him trouble.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Especially since we paying about $350k combined for the services of Boniol and Joey Jones...

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Yeah....sadly I am not sure there is anyway to correct it this year. After this many games, a punter is kind of who they are going to be. I think our special teams coaching has been fine ....protect well, cover well....but just not sure there is any way to get a punter to consistently punt the ball 40 yards. This will have to be fixed on the recruiting trail. Can Goodman punt? He definitely has the leg strength to blast it. Saw on his bio "Also tallied a 41.6 yard punting average as a senior"...granted that was high school but just throwing it out there.

Actually I'm not sure it has been. Punt coverage is fine? We gave up a 30 yard return because our gunners just assumed he called a fair catch. That's coaching. Our KO and punt return units haven't done anything in a while. Goodman can kick it good, but our staff kept on having him kick it to the goal line to try and pin them deep. Except they got it past the 25 more often than not and it's a needless risk of injury/TD if you can't consistently cost them 5+ yards of field position.

We haven't returned anything, blocked punts/FGs, and the coaching decisions on kickoffs have been bad. FG unit is ok, and I'll give the punt coverage a little wiggle room since our punters are so inconsistent with length and hang time. Given how good USA's special team had been, I was expecting better from them overall.

[drunkernhelldawg]

aTm is the best college punter in a long time. The guy at one point was averaging like 65 yards a punt. He would probably start for most NFL teams right now. It is ridiculous that we can't even kick one 40 yards.

I'll take Logan Cooke over anybody. Last season he punted for us. This season he's with the Jacksonville Jaguars. His stats are mind blowing, almost half of his punts pinned opponents inside the 20. We're missing that big time this season.

[Jack Lambert]

Did Day punt every time we punted?

[whosyourdawgy]

Punting or lack there of has been huge in every game we’ve lost. Field position was key and our punter sucking ass helped lead to keeping us deep in our territory w a lot of ground to cover to get points. Surely we have someone that can kick it 40 yds consistenly. Surely

[ShotgunDawg]

Our punter needs to go to punting camp every summer.

Nah. Just go get a grad transfer & replace him. much easier solution & more reliable

[ShotgunDawg]

Hopefully the coaches are giving Goodman a shot in practice.

What we've been getting at punter is not D1 caliber.

The kid's plant leg doesn't even leave the ground when he accelerates through the ball. That doodoo athleticism

[War Machine Dawg]

Lots of folks here bitched about Cooke last season while I was saying how much we'd miss him. You don't just replace one of the 32 best in the world. I expected us to have a bit of a drop, but I never dreamed it would be as big a drop as it has been.

Hell, we should do what Mike Leach did at TX Tech several years back with his FG kicker. All his kickers sucked, so Leach held open tryouts in the middle of the season. He found a student walk-on to replace his kickers. Moorhead should've held open tryouts for punter over the bye week. He needs to go sign the best JUCO punter available in this class. Day & Schexnayder aren't up to scratch for the SEC.

[IMissJack]

I thought Day was highly regarded as a punting recruit in high school. I'm not sure why he as not progressed in college.

[Pit Bull]

Watching replay and aTm's punter is averaging over 54 yards a punt! WOW!
Our punter is avaraging about 35 yards per punt. Thats sad.

Go find a good punter who's really into grass. Tell him to come to MSU and get his Masters in Turf Grass Management as long as he can bong it at least 40+ yds.

[BuckyIsAB****]

Yeah....sadly I am not sure there is anyway to correct it this year. After this many games, a punter is kind of who they are going to be. I think our special teams coaching has been fine ....protect well, cover well....but just not sure there is any way to get a punter to consistently punt the ball 40 yards. This will have to be fixed on the recruiting trail. Can Goodman punt? He definitely has the leg strength to blast it. Saw on his bio "Also tallied a 41.6 yard punting average as a senior"...granted that was high school but just throwing it out there.

He absolutely can do it

[drunkernhelldawg]

Lots of folks here bitched about Cooke last season while I was saying how much we'd miss him. You don't just replace one of the 32 best in the world. I expected us to have a bit of a drop, but I never dreamed it would be as big a drop as it has been.

Hell, we should do what Mike Leach did at TX Tech several years back with his FG kicker. All his kickers sucked, so Leach held open tryouts in the middle of the season. He found a student walk-on to replace his kickers. Moorhead should've held open tryouts for punter over the bye week. He needs to go sign the best JUCO punter available in this class. Day & Schexnayder aren't up to scratch for the SEC.

Cooke made big play after big play for us. He did it so regularly that we must have thought it was ho hum normal.

Bottom line is that the kicking game is second to a running game for formulas that win football games.

[Tbonewannabe]

Cooke made big play after big play for us. He did it so regularly that we must have thought it was ho hum normal.

Bottom line is that the kicking game is second to a running game for formulas that win football games.

Dak did the same for the QB position. He was so good then you think Fitz must really suck because he isn't completing passes like Dak. Meanwhile, we have our 2nd best QB in history and people like me are wondering if he should be benched after LSU.

[drunkernhelldawg]

Dak did the same for the QB position. He was so good then you think Fitz must really suck because he isn't completing passes like Dak. Meanwhile, we have our 2nd best QB in history and people like me are wondering if he should be benched after LSU.

Fitz is damn good. I'd say that the drop off in punting is larger than the drop off in quarterback. Dak had a few bad games, especially the "I believe" game vs. Bama.

[sandwolf]

Fitz is damn good. I'd say that the drop off in punting is larger than the drop off in quarterback. Dak had a few bad games, especially the "I believe" game vs. Bama.

The "we believe" team was 2012 and Tyler Russell was our quarterback. But Dak did have a bad game against them in 2014.