How confident are you feeling about our kicking, punting, ST in general?

[SalUteopia]

Outside of Covey, our ST situation was quite bleak last year. How much improved do you think we will be this year?

[AlohaUte]

Not confident at all. It’s 100% the one part of the team I’m most concerned about; particularly punt coverage and field goal kicking.

[SalUteopia]

Same, I’m very concerned about close games where this becomes a deciding factor.

[UtahPilot47]

Jadon Redding is 114 of 116 on PATs and 80% on FG’s in his career at Utah. He is one of the best kickers in the country. 

[ALUF]

I am an unbeliever until I see it. This makes me real nervous on our ability to make a title defense run and something I really hadn’t considered

[SalUteopia]

We’re not perfect in other areas, but I’ve been most worried about STs all off-season.

[D T]

I trust Coach KW will have it rectified.

We don’t need our STs to be elite, even avg would not interfere w/the other two facets of our game.

[ProudUte]

I hear that our new punter is doing well in camp.

I think our worst things last year were coverage on punts and kickoffs.  This is not about talent IMO.  It is all about coaching and discipline.  Kuithe suggested in an interview that he may be playing on these teams.

[2008 National Champ]

The worst thing was not being able to get punts off consistently. Those either flipped the field in the wrong direction or were direct scores.

[Trailgoat]

Not at all confident. Would not surprise me at all if UF blocks a punt or runs a KO back for a TD and overall big return yardage. Same kicker struggles kicking touch backs at the RES. Utah KO return coverage and punt team were awful all season. Did not get fixed all season costing Utah the Rose Bowl, no reason to believe to anything has changed with the same coach unable to fix it throughout the 2021 season. Could be the difference in the Swamp.

[tanute3]

I’m not sure that I would agree it costed us the Rose Bowl. Stroud and JSN were scoring at will from wherever they started their drive in the second half… I do think ST costed us the Oregon State game. OSU’s blocked punt for a TD was huge in that game.

[Tony (admin)]

I’m most worried about punt blocking. It was horrid last year. 

[utefansince79]

Shouldn’t concede that many blocked punts in a decade, let alone in a single season.

Hopefully will see that straightened out.

 

 

 

[Charlie]

I don’t expect issues. Whitt is good at improving weak points in the off season, especially STs. We do need one of the two punters to work out. I don’t recall, was Peasley the punter that struggled but is now gone? Most often the kick and kick cover teams benefit when the LB, S, CB, and WR groups have depth because other then the return guy there are very few stars on STs. My hope is that Shah becomes free of outside distractions and the STs excel. Whitt has stuck with this assignment so that tells me he expects last season to be an anomaly. Covey at PR is not at all likely to be replicated. Reggie is on the staff for recruiting, maybe he can help Shah bring along a PR guy.