The Dude
New member
It's such a silly thing to be bad at. I'm sure the next Alex Henry isn't hiding out on the bench somewhere. But out of 105+ D1 athletes you don't have a couple who can, at minimum, kick the ball to the other side of the field?
2024 Fall Camp Notes - Special Teams
- Thread starter Mavric
- Start date
It's such a silly thing to be bad at. I'm sure the next Alex Henry isn't hiding out on the bench somewhere. But out of 105+ D1 athletes you don't have a couple who can, at minimum, kick the ball to the other side of the field?
The Dude
New member
Oh damn. I should learn to read. I didn't see this point was already made. :lol:
HuskermanMike
New member
I don't know about that. Did anyone see Koch punt at the open practice? We all know Nebraska fans love to hype up the back-up just to get equal or worse results. I think Koch is not physically ready yet. However, if it gets really bad I could see him punting in November and playing in 4 games. Confidence is a big thing for special teams players and you don't want to mess with it unless they are ready. Do you remember Caleb Lightbourn?
MyBloodIsRed16
Active member
Carter Nelson can probably punt... maybe
HuskermanMike
New member
I don't know about that. Did anyone see Koch punt at the open practice? We all know Nebraska fans love to hype up the back-up just to get equal or worse results. I think Koch is not physically ready yet. However, if it gets really bad I could see him punting in November and playing in 4 games. Confidence is a big thing for special teams players and you don't want to mess with it unless they are ready. Do you remember Caleb Lightbourn?
whateveritis1224
New member
It's not being in love with the backup, it's being hopeful that the backup would show more consistency than the guy who's been here for 3-4 years and still has a shanking problem. If Koch can come out and kick 40 yards and have zero shanks, I'd take that over what Buscini has done the past few years.
HuskermanMike
New member
You do realize Brian averaged just over 40 yards per punt last year and 44 yards per punt in 2022. If the coaches wanted to get a different punter they would have hit the portal but chose not to. This is probably because they like what they have in Buschini. It was observed for an early practice in fall camp that punting wasn't great. It has time to get better by 8/31.
The last 5 games from 2023 for Brian
Iowa- just under 40 yards per punt. Let's just round up to 40 from 39.9 yards
Wisconsin- 35 yards per punt
Maryland- 45 yards per punt
Michigan State- 35 yards per punt
Purdue- 46 yards per punt
So three of his last 5 games met the threshold for you for coming out and punting 40 yards. He 8 had games where he punted 40 yards or more. We know what we are getting. He will either punt really well or will punt a few games in the 35-yard average range. Hopefully, he can be more consistent but it is not as bad as others have been saying.
gobiggergoredder
Active member
Considering it was “bombs away” nearly every time because we couldn’t cross the 50 id expect it to be higher.
Wonder if any of these others were influenced by touchbacks?
Red Five
New member
I know that punting distance can be skewed by some factors (hangtime, field position, etc), but having a 40 yards/punt average is bad.
Buschini averaged 40.7 yards/punt last year, good for 71st out of 89 qualified punters. 45 yards/punt will get you into the top 20, 46 yards/punt will be in the top 10. (Iowa's Taylor was 3rd at 48.2 yards/punt.)
Buschini averaged 40.7 yards/punt last year, good for 71st out of 89 qualified punters. 45 yards/punt will get you into the top 20, 46 yards/punt will be in the top 10. (Iowa's Taylor was 3rd at 48.2 yards/punt.)
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gobiggergoredder
Active member
Which is what I'd expect from a team with a bad offense. If you can't move the ball you're always launching it to flip the field.
HuskersNC949597
New member
Buschini had 1 touchback. Opponents returned 19 punts for 144 yards (7.6 avg/ret).
HuskermanMike
New member
I don't know, I guess you can make a case for that. I did see him punt a 60-yarder against Minnesota.
In 2022, he was at 44 yards per game. I see him getting around 43 yards a punt this year to get closer to his 2022 average. So the question remains, were we able to get a punter with a better average than that in the portal? I assume the answer was no so we are sticking with Buschini.
At least we don't have our Defensive Coordinator coaching the punter!
Husker in WI
New member
2022 Buschini was fine, and hopefully he can be that again. If the guarantee existed I would absolutely take a more consistent 40 yard average (ideally with hangtime) rather than gamble on Buschini finding his 2022 form instead of 2023. Consistency matters, and he had 4 games for 35 or less yards per punt last year, all with at least 4 punts. I can tolerate some inconsistency with a good average, but he didn't have either.
Of course there is no guarantee, and a true freshman is probably even more likely to be inconsistent. But 2023 Buschini was very, very bad and the open practice did not give a lot of confidence that 2023 was a fluke. There were guys in the portal - this guy averaged 47 a punt at Weber State, another one averaged 46.9 at Arkansas, 45 at Notre Dame. Now maybe they wouldn't have been interested anyway, and Buschini came in after averaging 46 at Montana so you can't be sure. But they definitely weren't going to transfer here with a returning starter embedded, so there's at least an argument that Buschini could have been encouraged to move on. It would have been risky, but so it sticking with him tbh.
Undone
New member
Good point - it's almost a place where you'd want to view a player's punts on a scatter plot graph of some kind to better visualize the upper & lower bounds and their frequency, rather than just looking at an average stat.
And that's really what the original point was by whoever made it: the shanks are definitely costly.