Help me out, why did we pooch kick it at the end of the ND game? I would have thought we would want to kick it away from a player and try to pin deep or just kick it for touchback. There were only 10 seconds or so left. Kicking it shallow doesn't make sense to me, but I may be missing something. Maybe we were trying to pin it close to the goal line and just didn't execute right?

Chew up more clock and minimize the risk of them housing it.

Why you kicking your pooch dude?!

Pooch basically ensures they have to either field it to return and burn clock, or fair catch with reasonably bad field position to prevent the clock burning but also eliminating the chance of a return. The fact we nearly housed one about 3 minutes before probably added to the apprehension of taking a chance with a deep returnable kick

Perfect. Makes sense, thanks for helping out.

C2 Ag 93 said:

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Help me out, why did we pooch kick it at the end of the ND game? I would have thought we would want to kick it away from a player and try to pin deep or just kick it for touchback. There were only 10 seconds or so left. Kicking it shallow doesn't make sense to me, but I may be missing something. Maybe we were trying to pin it close to the goal line and just didn't execute right?

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I don't think they executed it exactly like they wanted to but basically the seconds were more important than the yards. It worked but I would have thought they would kick it a little deeper. It's possible they didn't want to take a chance for the ball to go into the endzone. They ultimately left ND with two plays which was about perfect.

Yea, makes sense. I do think it wasn't executed perfectly, was expecting something deeper. But I get the concept now of doing it in that situation. Great call.

https://gifbin.com/982861

JustisWalkert said:

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https://gifbin.com/982861

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That link is herpes.

Zachary Klement said:

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Chew up more clock and minimize the risk of them housing it.

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Unfortunately, we didn't keep the kick in the middle of the field and they were able to get out of bounds quickly.

Yep, I didn't favor that call either. Guess it also involves consideration of how much you trust your kicker, and I didn't see much incentive to trust ours to get it out of the end zone.

What I don't understand is why we can't find a kick-off/place kicker who can kick it out of the end zone 99% of the time. I allow a kicker may miss 1% of the time due to wind, rain, and other uncontrollables.

What does a place kicker have to do in practice ? As far as I can tell, he only has to practice the kick; there's no snap count to worry about, no rushers, etc. So, if a kicker can spend every practice doing nothing but kicking, then why shouldn't he be able to get it out of the end zone 99% of time. Surely we can find someone who can do that, if the one we have now can't.

AgLA06 said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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Chew up more clock and minimize the risk of them housing it.

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Unfortunately, we didn't keep the kick in the middle of the field and they were able to get out of bounds quickly.

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Getting out of bounds isn't that important in that situation. The returning team can always just go down wherever they are on the field and stop the clock on the return.

NM

ND had 13 seconds and 2 TO's. By running 2 seconds on the kick, we took away one play from them. With 13 seconds at the 25, they could have thrown two 18 yard square-ins, calling a TO after each one, leaving one second to attempt a 56 yard FG. The 2 second trade for 7 yards was really good strategy.

To pile on to what's already said...
Look at punts that don't get fair caught. Clock-be-damned the receiving team almost always clears away from the ball. We all know the football when it's tumbling around can be hard to field. That pooch kick is a very live and posessible ball and ND absolutely HAD to get onto it. In effect, it's a deeper on-side kick. We weren't necessarily trying to recover it, but it's going to burn some clock, and ND absolutely had to get onto it and control it.

Like 94 said above me... Getting even 2 seconds off the clock is big in this situation.

Fair catch inside the 25, ball comes out to 25 and no time comes off the clock. Had to be a short kick in order to insure a return and run some time off the clock.

I thought it was a brilliant play

They could have called a fair catch anywhere.

Pooch it to complicate any return play they have set up. Most likely, they don't have a return play setup for an up back. Also greater possibility of them fumbling if they try to return it because the up back is probably not as skilled at ball handling as the deep back.

consumed about 2 seconds and gave them 5 yards.