Just a random off-season thought. Do we need to look into a special teams coordinator? Or give a position coach the coordinator title to keep them around and give them more money? I think we can get some of our younger players more involved in the special team's units. If we are only going to give Achane a few drives a game as a change of pace to Spiller why not have him return punts? That way we don't have to watch the Anias number change routine every time the opponent punts. Maybe we wouldn't mind returning kicks if we only risk back up WRs like Demas or Moose instead of starters. I'm sure if they are as hyped as they are supposed to be having them touch the ball a couple of times a game on KOR wouldn't be horrible and could give a gametime look at what they could do with the ball in their hands.

I recall Waddle destroying us on special teams a couple of years ago (was a huge factor in their win over us). And it wasn't just him...it was the many other starters that Saban utilized on special teams that block/tackle.

I believe special teams often get overlooked and deserve more attention (think of how huge Mann was for us in flipping the field so often and how an extra 10-15 yards on a return can make). Consequently, I'm in favor of having a dedicated coach focused on special team's play.

Edits for crappy spelling...

Great ST coordinators are rare. The key to good special teams is a stud returner, and a bench full of talented LBs and DBs.

Not going to happen as long as Jimbo is the coach.

No, save the money for something better. Punt and kickoff returns are rare with the kicks through the end zone and the new fair catch rule.

For receiving, I think it's pretty clear that Jimbo doesn't want to risk any of his players getting hurt just to get a slightly better starting point for his offense. Not sure if he's gonna change this for 2021, but I doubt it will be changing.

As for defending against a receiving team, I feel like that's mostly a talent vs talent rather than an actual scheming. At least, that's the vibe I'm getting off of it. I feel like we'll be able to handle deadly receiving teams if we have great defenders in our special team.

You raise interesting points.

Could be that jimbo didn't return kicks in '20 bc we were originally scheduled to play 10 sec games in 11 weeks. Could be that jimbo still doesn't like our depth. Could be that jimbo only believes in situational kick returns given the new touchback rules.

Forcing opponents to defend kick returns even when there is no advantage forces them to fight a war of attrition. That is a brutal approach, but could be effective against an opponent that plays starters on kickoff, especially if they already have depth and or injury issues.

I agree that most of covering kicks and punts is jimmy and joes. Banks was a great st coordinator bc he found weaknesses in protection and coverage. Kirk is also a great athlete.

Agsuffering@bulaw said:

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You raise interesting points.

Could be that jimbo didn't return kicks in '20 bc we were originally scheduled to play 10 sec games in 11 weeks. Could be that jimbo still doesn't like our depth. Could be that jimbo only believes in situational kick returns given the new touchback rules.

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Actually, I never thought that Jimbo could've been opting to just fair catch more because of the all-SEC schedule. Maybe depth is an issue also, but that combined with the schedule we had would've been more than enough reasons to just play it safe and minimize the risk. If those two are no longer factors (next year), then he might do more returns. Considering how we opted for more returns in the UNC game, it's a strong possibility.

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Forcing opponents to defend kick returns even when there is no advantage forces them to fight a war of attrition. That is a brutal approach, but could be effective against an opponent that plays starters on kickoff, especially if they already have depth and or injury issues.

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Is this type of planning frequent in major P5 games? If so, that is smart but brutal as you described it.

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I agree that most of covering kicks and punts is jimmy and joes. Banks was a great st coordinator bc he found weaknesses in protection and coverage. Kirk is also a great athlete.

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Honestly, I really don't know too much about defending against returns. I just heard from other football talkers (with more viewing experiences than me) that there really isn't too much planning going in this phase. I never knew that Banks is considered a great ST coordinator because of the points you listed, though. So that's interesting to think about here.

Not sure about coaching--- but I hope A&M improves at punting next season. Really need to improve there.

I consider banks very good. I don't know if there is a consensus.

I don't know how many coaches stop and consider leveraging the other teams attrition through STs. I thought about it and the good ones are smarter than me.

The depth specifically focuses on the positions that cover kicks and punts: LBs, DBs, sometimes fb/rb/wr who can tackle. We still have depth questions, esp at LB.

Most of a kickoff is about assignment discipline. 2 are free to attack the ball. The other 8 are expected to be in specific places. Execute correctly, should go ok unless the kr is a far better athlete or the return team blocks perfectly.