Thursday, July 9, 2015

Virginia Tech's kick return woes of 2014

With a 6-6 regular season record, there was obviously a lot wrong with Virginia Tech last season.  The high of beating Ohio State in their own stadium is tempered by, well, almost every other game.

One area of weakness that stands out from the season was the poor field position resulting from kick returns.  I decided to take a look at the stats to see if I had been leveling fair criticisms at the kick returners.  I pulled the kickoff data from the game stats from HokieSports.com, which includes a summary of every single play in every single game.



In 13 games (including the bowl game), Virginia Tech was on the receiving end of 58 kickoffs.  Two of those were onside kicks attempted by the opponent, so I'll take them out of the stats, and that leaves us with 56.

Thirty-six of those kicks went into the endzone.  Of those, only 20 resulted in touchbacks.

Without going back and watching game tape of all of those kicks, I cannot determine how many touchbacks were results of kneeling in the end zone as opposed to the ball being kicked out of the back of the end zone.  Also, I cannot determine if the 8 kicks that were caught between the 1 and 3 yard line might have rolled into the endzone.  Perhaps those numbers balance each other out in figuring out the decision making of the return men.

Ultimately, I am concerned with the 16 kicks that went into the end zone and were brought out.  Below, I have copy and pasted the line from the game summaries for those kickoffs.

William and Mary (game 1)
2Q (14:50) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 20 yards to the VT20
3Q (15:00) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Knowles, D return 16 yards to the VT16

3Q (4:18) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 20 yards to the VT20

Georgia Tech (game 4)
1Q (10:56) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Knowles, D return 29 yards to the VT29

Western Michigan (game 5)
1Q (4:15) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Demitri Knowles return 20 yards to the VT20

UNC (game 6)
1Q (11:38) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 18 yards to the VT18
3Q (15:00) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 17 yards to the VT17
4Q (13:19) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Coleman, JC return 19 yards to the VT19

Pitt (game 7)
4Q (13:07) -- kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 9 yards to the VT9

Miami (game 8)
2Q (14:11) -- Justin Vogel kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Knowles, D return 14 yards to the VT14
3Q (15:00) -- Justin Vogel kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 58 yards to the UM42

BC (game 9)
1Q (15:00) -- Howell,A kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Knowles, D return 10 yards to the VT10
2Q (8:10) -- Howell,A kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Newsome, D return 19 yards to the VT19
3Q (5:36) -- Howell,A kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Knowles, D return 18 yards to the VT18

Duke (game 10)
3Q (15:00) -- Willoughby, J kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Deon Newsome return 18 yards to the VT18

UVA (game 12)
3Q (15:00) -- Dylan Sims kickoff 65 yards to the VT0, Demitri Knowles return 29 yards to the VT29, fumble forced by Wilfred Wahee, fumble by Demitri Knowles recovered by VA Darius Lee at VT29, Darius Lee for no gain to the VT29.

As you can see, there were three primary returners in there:  Demitri Knowles (7 returns), Deon Newsome (8), and JC Coleman (1).

Looking at that data, only three returns gained more than 25 yards.  Knowles got to the 29 twice, but fumbled one of those.  Newsome broke out with a nice 58 yard return against Miami, one of very few highlights from that night.

Only three other returns broke the 20 yard line, which leaves 10 returns that did not even make it to the 20 yard line.

If those 16 returns had all been touchbacks, the Hokies would have had 400 extra yards of field position.  Instead, they only gained 305 yards.  I am not counting the return for the UVA game, because of the fumble at the end.  Had Knowles taken a knee, the Hokies would have had the ball at the 25 yard line instead of TJ's rejects having it at the 29.

If we take out Newsome's 58 yard return, we only get 247 yards vs. a possible 375.

Taking a quick look at the other returns, there were only a few returns that got 25 yards or more, regardless of where the ball was caught.  JC Coleman had a 44 yard return, and Newsome had a 26 yarder.  Der'Woun Greene took over the returns in the bowl game, and had two returns of 27 and 46 yards.  Knowles only had three returns of more than 20 yards all season, but none greater than 29.

So, was the criticism of the kick returners fair?  I think so.  At some point, I would imagine that the player has to realize that their production was not averaging better than a touchback, regardless of what the contributing factors were.

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