Season Grades: Special Teams Was a Weakness for OSU in 2017

Members of a football program’s special teams unit have the most thankless jobs on the roster. Most of the time they’re remembered for what went wrong and rarely receive attention or laud when things go as planned. Unfortunately, Oklahoma State’s specials team got a lot of pub in 2017.

Production

ESPN has a pretty nifty stat where they figure a special teams unit’s effect on its team’s scoring margin on a per-play basis, adjusted for strength of schedule, and they grade it from 0-100. Oklahoma State’s group came in at a whopping 31.5 or No. 126 out of 130 teams ranked.

The fine folks at BCF Toys have a special teams efficiency rating of their own that figures “the average value generated per possession by a team’s non-offensive and non-defensive units.” It uses field goal efficiency (OSU ranked 56th), kickoff return efficiency (112th), kickoff efficiency (67th), punt return (118th), punts (109th) and field position numbers to come up with an over score. The Cowboys came in at 122nd overall in special teams efficiency out of 130 teams.

Production Grade: F

Place Kicking

Place kicker must be one of the hardest positions to play. There’s no middle ground. You either “do your job” or you don’t. There’s no in between and you’re pretty much out there all alone from a spectator’s view.

Matt Ammendola had a rough start to his first year as the Cowboys’ starting FG kicker. There’s no other way to slice it. There were a couple of early short misses and the problem was made painfully apparent in Lubbock with the clanging noise it made as football collided with goal post and Ammendola came up short from 18 and 22 yards.

But one of the more understated storylines from this past season was Ammendola’s really good finish.

The coaching staff made an effort to get “Philly” lined up in the center of the field down the stretch. If that was all he needed, shouldn’t that have been a priority earlier? Regardless, Ammendola righted his own ship and finished the season 15 of 17 after the trip to Lubbock with one miss at Texas from 29 yards and a 49-yard miss in Morgantown.

Ammendola finished with a respectable 79.3-percent completion rate on the year while leading the Big 12 and finishing 6th in the nation with 29 attempts.

Place Kicking Grade: B+

Kickoffs

On kickoffs, OSU came in 67th in BCF Toy’s metric and 93rd in average kickoff yardage. They also finished 83rd with only 34 percent of Ammendola’s kicks ending in a touchback. That’s down from Ammendola’s 47 rate from last year when he was handling KO duties only.

Mike Gundy would still like to find someone who can consistently kick the ball from the tee to end zone around 60 percent of the time. He hasn’t had that since Quinn Sharp rode off into the sunset six years ago.

Kickoff Grade: C-

Punt Team

Zach Sinor, who was the most effective punter in college football in 2016, took at step back in 2017. The Cowboys went from No. 7 in punting efficiency the season before to 109th this year and from 1st in defensive field position to 74th.

Sinor was briefly benched for Matt Hockett in Morgantown after a slow-developing punt was blocked for 6 points the wrong way in OSU’s end zone. Hockett sent one punt 49 yards and buried it at the West Virginia 3-yard line.

Sinor is still P1 but Hockett gives the Cowboys another option who’s shown he’s got both a the leg to crank it and the foot to place it.

Punting Grade: B-

Return Game

The Cowboy return game has been underwhelming for the most part since the departure of Tyreek Hill after his Bedlam miracle three years ago. OSU hasn’t returned a punt for a touchdown since 2015 and one of those two scores was actually a blocked punt, scoop and score by Miketavius Jones. The last Cowboy to return a kickoff for 6 points was Tyreek Hill. So other than Jalen McCleskey’s 2015 punt return TD in Lubbock, the Pokes haven’t scored on a true return in three full seasons.

What’s worse, I thought 2017 was the year. Tyron Johnson showed some moves but lost his spot as a kick returner somewhere between Homecoming and Bedlam. LD Brown was fine on kick returns. Gundy finally benched McCleskey for Dillon Stoner at punt returner after several head-scratchers. The two combined for three fumbled punts.

I know that the return game isn’t just about the homerun play and its success or failure is not the sole responsibility of one player, but I had high hopes and those were not realized. I can’t bring myself to round up to a B grade on this one.

Return Grade: C+

Kick/Punt Coverage

This is another phase of special teams that falls on a lot of heads. The coverage team, the kickers and the coach in charge. More on that below.

We’re going to lump the kickoff and punt coverage units here. OSU came in 35th in opponent kickoff return yardage allowing 19.4 yards per play and T64th allowing 6.9 yards per punt return. The Cowboys did allow TDs on both a punt and a kickoff for the first time since 2012. Some of that falls on the feet of their teammates and some falls on the coverage unit.

Overall, it was not great and I still think Oklahoma State should have a full-time special teams coordinator. But apparently that’s not going to happen unless Brian VanGorder is going to be scheming for the double wedge instead of running the LB meetings. So here’s to Mike Gundy taking better notes on his steno pad from his watch tower.

Coverage Grade: B- 

The Future

The Cowboys redshirted Jake McClure a highly-regarded punter/kicker in 2017 so we’ll see where he figures into the mix starting this spring. OSU also received the commitment from an Australian punter named Tom Hutton, who’s almost my age and has about as much experience punting American footballs as I do.

OSU returns several key pieces in special teams and there is always room for improvement — especially after this last season. The punting game has to be better. Field position was a huge help to OSU’s defense in 2016, and Glenn Spencer and Co. didn’t get that benefit in 2017.

Ammendola seems to have figured things out on field goals but OSU probably needs a full-time leg that can consistently kick touchbacks. Coverage can improve and in the return game OSU needs a guy or two step up to #FREETYRON.

All in all, the Cowboys’ special teams came up short in 2017. That was probably at least one more W for the Pokes in 2017.

Final Grade: a generous D