Our special teams have improved markedly under Coach Fritz. We rarely see the dropped hikes, shanked kicks, fumbled punts, snaps over the punters head, and blocked field goal attempts that became so common under the previous couple of regimes. Still, we had a couple such errors this year. And we had more special team penalties than desired. Those need correction. We also saw a much better return game once Amare Jones took over the job and I’d expect that to continue.
This leads me to some interesting statistics. Jones’s 27.9 yards per kick return was the best in Tulane history since Bobby “Jitterbug” Kellogg returned six kicks for an average of 38.2 yards in 1938. Yep, the best in 80 years. Wow!!! And that was good for 5th place in the country this year out of 129 teams. His 7.5 yards/punt return was the best since Derrick Strozier’s 8.1 yard average in 2012. As for kicking: in two years, Glover is now 73 for 77 (95%) on extra points and 18 for 22 (81.8%) on field goals. Those are certainly good numbers. In fact, that field goal percentage is the best in Tulane history, even better than Cairo Santos’s 78.2% from 2010-2013. Of course, Glover’s long is only 40 yards which equates to a line of scrimmage at the 22 yard line. And his misses on short field goals against Cincinnati in 2017 and Navy in 2018 contributed to one loss and could have cost us another. And punting has improved. Freshman Ryan Wright averaged 44.0 yards per punt, good for 20th best in the country. Of course, Block did all of our “pooch” punting, so that helped his average. Still… we seem to be on the right track.
Roll Wave!!!
This leads me to some interesting statistics. Jones’s 27.9 yards per kick return was the best in Tulane history since Bobby “Jitterbug” Kellogg returned six kicks for an average of 38.2 yards in 1938. Yep, the best in 80 years. Wow!!! And that was good for 5th place in the country this year out of 129 teams. His 7.5 yards/punt return was the best since Derrick Strozier’s 8.1 yard average in 2012. As for kicking: in two years, Glover is now 73 for 77 (95%) on extra points and 18 for 22 (81.8%) on field goals. Those are certainly good numbers. In fact, that field goal percentage is the best in Tulane history, even better than Cairo Santos’s 78.2% from 2010-2013. Of course, Glover’s long is only 40 yards which equates to a line of scrimmage at the 22 yard line. And his misses on short field goals against Cincinnati in 2017 and Navy in 2018 contributed to one loss and could have cost us another. And punting has improved. Freshman Ryan Wright averaged 44.0 yards per punt, good for 20th best in the country. Of course, Block did all of our “pooch” punting, so that helped his average. Still… we seem to be on the right track.
Roll Wave!!!
