Basmanbruno,
I have no interest in continuing a personal discussion because I think we've both already said all that needs to be said. I will, however, address your responses to the actual substance of my post.
Also.. I had NO idea it was some big secret to get your players as close to the ball as possible on punt coverages! Mr. Urban Meyer must of come up with something big here! Call the press! Anyone who strives not to be NEAR the punt returner doesn't deserve to be coaching. Meyer isn't doing anything more than the other coaches... I haven't seen special teams change in awhile except for more rugby punts and that continually going offside by Wisconsin(maybe? not sure who it was) to run out the clock on a kickoff. Urban did not come up with something new here unless he found some complex math formula to calculate the bounce of the ball on any given occasion. /Ends the big wall of text made famous by jamaicagator
I don't fully understand your point here. You're saying, from what I can tell, that, because everyone knows that you should get your players closer to the ball, the fact Meyer has actually found a way to accomplish this isn't anything special. This makes no sense to me. Everyone knows that you should try to score a lot of touchdowns, but what makes a coach great is his ability to find ways of making this happen. That's what Meyer has done here. He's found a way schematically to get his coverage guys closer to the punt returner. This is evidenced not only by the muffs and muff recoveries, but also the tremendous success of our punt return defense (top five nationally in each of the past two years).
So what sets Meyer apart isn't that he knows he should get his players closer to the ball, but that he's found a way of actually doing this.
That also explains how our recovery of muffed punts isn't purely a matter of luck, except in the proverbial sense that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Muffed punts happen all the time and not perferentially for any one team, but our players are in a better position to take advantage of these muffs (i.e., recover them) because of the preparation (i.e., gameplanning) of our coaches.
You say that Meyer isn't doing anything new and that you haven't seen special teams change in a while (with two exceptions that don't apply here), but I would recommend that you take a look at Tennessee's punt formation and Florida's punt formation and see if you can identify any change. Better yet, look at our punt formation this year and our punt formation from the Zook or Spurrier years and tell me if you see any difference.
There is a difference. Meyer's punt formation is different than the traditional one, and I believe this is why we have had such great punt return defense, why we've had several successful fakes over the past two years (e.g., vs. UGA in 2005, vs. Arkansas in 2006), and also why we've been better able to force and recover muffed punts. I'm pretty sure that Meyer was among the first to use the modern punt formation that has since been mimicked by many coaching staffs (though not always with similar results), and this is indicative of a big part of what makes Meyer such a great coach--his relentless effort and commitment to innovation.
Which comes back to my initial point. Sometimes people don't appreciate all the work and preparation that goes into these things. They only see the results, and because of this it's easy for them to call it luck, but I don't think this is the case at all. You can, however, ignore all of the things I've told you can still insist that when these things happen they're just a matter of luck that no one can control, and then you can watch as Meyer continues to be so lucky just as he was at Bowling Green, just as he was at Utah, and just as he has been for two seasons at Florida.
lol:
