NU makes changes to shore up kickoff return team
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BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
They thought the problem was fixed.
A week after Western Illinois managed two long kickoff returns against Nebraska, including one for a touchdown, NU football players and coaches spent extra time fine-tuning their coverage units.
That work appeared to pay off when Nebraska's next opponent, Southern Mississippi, had only one kickoff return for 23 yards.
Then Pittsburgh's Marcus Furman returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown. For the first time since 1970, Nebraska had allowed two kickoff returns for TDs in one season. And conference play hadn't even started.
"We're not going out there thinking anybody's going to do anything on us," said redshirted freshman Bo Ruud, a member of the kickoff coverage unit. "It's just one of those things, all of a sudden, it happens, and you go back on film, and you look around and see, ‘Oh, we did this little thing wrong here, a little thing wrong here.'"
Through three games, NU ranks last in the Big 12 in kickoff coverage, allowing an average of 36.9 yards per return. That's 12 yards more than the school record for average yards allowed in a season, set in 1970.
So again, the Huskers are in fine-tuning mode. Or perhaps, more accurately, rebuilding mode.
Coaches and players have indicated that NU's kickoff coverage unit will have a different look personnel-wise when Nebraska opens Big 12 Conference play Saturday night against Kansas.
"Yeah, they're looking at some things right now," Ruud said. "I think they're going to put a few starters on."
Said Nebraska coach Bill Callahan: "The best players play. If we need a starter, they'll definitely be on the field, and they'll contribute in that specific area."
Nebraska special-teams coordinator Bill Busch wouldn't address specific changes, saying only that coaches had some works in progress.
"We have a couple things that we're looking at," Busch said, "but we have not made any drastic changes of any kind right now."
For starters, look for a different kicker. Senior Sandro DeAngelis, who's been the starting kicker on kickoffs the last two games, said junior Sam Koch will assume those duties Saturday.
"Coach wants to make the changes he feels are necessary," DeAngelis said, "and hopefully it works out this weekend."
Koch kicked off the final seven games of the 2003 season, recording 18 touchbacks on 32 attempts, but was slowed by a groin injury this fall. In his place, DeAngelis and David Dyches combined for six touchbacks on 18 kickoffs in three games.
"What kickers can do to help out would be to, first of all, get the ball placed where Coach Busch wants it, and that's more toward the numbers on the field, so we're kind of pinpointing the team into the corner," DeAngelis said.
"Another thing we could do, obviously, is to put it out (of the end zone) every time, but you've got to have a pretty strong leg to do that."
Yes, Busch said, a strong, well-placed kick can set the tone for successful coverage. But a subpar kick is also no excuse for allowing long returns.
"If the kick's not good, what are you going to do? You can't throw up a white flag and say the kick wasn't good," Busch said. "That's going to happen in football, when the ball's going to get miscued a little bit, so we have to able to adjust. And we do. It's built into our plan, it's practiced. There's nothing we see that's not exclusively practiced."
Busch points to other problems, such as poor lane distribution and missed tackles. He uses the return allowed at Pittsburgh as an example.
"We didn't do some things right," he said, "but at the same time, if we'd have just tackled, hit some spots, the play's just over and it's dead at the 16-yard line."
DeAngelis said he accepts some of that blame. A former linebacker in high school, he was embarrassed he missed a chance of bringing down Furman.
"I should've made the play," he said. "I didn't play it smart. I went for a kill shot, as opposed to just bringing a guy down, and that cost us."
Ruud, too, said that using basic fundamentals would prevent many of the problems NU has encountered.
"Just staying in your lanes," Ruud said. "Keeping in lanes ... and we've had too many missed tackles, of course. Just knowing when to shoot your gun at 'em. It's nothing too major. We just need to work on the little things a little bit more."
And believe Ruud, the Huskers have.
"We worked on it in the off week a lot," he said. "We put in some 15, 20 minutes extra time at the end of practice just for that. First couple of units took tons and tons of reps. Everybody's feeling a lot better about it, now that we singled it out and spent a lot of time on it, more than we've ever spent before."
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
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