Catching up with special teams coordinator Pete Alamar.
Q: Your units have been outstanding since your arrival in 2012. What are your top priorities in 2018?
A: The two big things that Coach Shaw talked about in meetings this year for our special teams is we need to be the best coverage teams in the country and we need to finish some returns. When the gauntlet is down, you gotta go.
Q: Cameron Scarlett ranked first in the Pac-12 with 1,008 return yards last season and led the nation with 12 kickoff returns of 30 yards or longer.
A: He did a good job of getting the ball to that point, but one thing you don't want to do is get tackled by the kicker; I think we were tackled by the kicker five times. Cam has the ability break one. You'll see Bryce Love back there and I think Connor Wedington is starting to show and gaining our confidence as a returner for punts and kickoffs. I think another guy that has speed and is potentially in the process is Paulson Adebo. Trevor Speights is also in that mix.
Punt return-wise, Trenton Irwin does a great job of catching the ball and is a good decision maker. Even though he didn't have any long returns, he was able to turn some positive yardage out of some tough situations. He's got a little more to him than most think. We will continue to work hard with Connor, and Paulson is taking some of those reps, too. We're also looking at freshman Michael Wilson.
Q: Your coverage groups are always among the best in the conference. How do they stack up?
A: Brandon Simmons is one of the best cover guys in the country. I don't think there was anyone in the Pac-12 last year that made more tackles on special teams. We went back and charted it. Mustafa Branch is incredibly productive and has a knack for making big plays, and Curtis Robinson has also been a big contributor. When healthy, Sean Barton is one of the more physical and dynamic cover guys in the conference. A guy who came on late in the season on kickoff coverage was Speights.
One of the fun things about the kicking game is that there are huge changes every year. That's when your young guys come in. Guys like Bobby Okereke, who played on three special teams a few years ago, is now a starting linebacker and only starts on one team and backs up another. We have more than a handful of young guys that can show up and help us this year.
Trenton Irwin did a really good job for us in terms of getting off the line really fast and being one of the first guys down there to down the punt.
Q: Any surprises?
A: We're just getting started, but guys like Stuart Head have a chance to crack the lineup. One guy to watch -- and you'd think he'd be the most interesting man in the world -- is Thunder Keck. He started out as a hockey player in high school and only played in five football games in his high school career. He walked on last year. Pound-for-pound, he's one of the fastest and most explosive guys on our team right now. He's gained 20 pounds, has a vertical jump of almost 40 inches and can broad jump 10 feet. He's raw to the game but very intriguing.
Q: Senior Jake Bailey paced the Pac-12 with a 45.5-yard punting average and 58 of his 83 kickoffs went for touchbacks.
A: His learning curve continues to rise. The exciting thing for Jake is that for what's he done so far in his career, there's still more left in the tank. We're a directional punt team, and early in Jake's career, his aiming point has been the numbers. We grade every punt based on where it lands. If the punt lands on the numbers, it's graded as a 'zero'. If the punt is outside the numbers, it's a plus 1, 2 and so on. If the punt lands inside the numbers, it's a minus 1, 2. What I've done to try and help him hone in on his focus even more is now a zero is graded when the ball lands five yards from the sideline. Now, for a punt to be graded a plus directionally, the ball has to be within five yards of the sideline.
We've tried to bring in his focus and give him new goals. He's working really hard and when you have a big leg, the crowd is always in awe of the 60-yard punt, but they don't understand the relationship of how long the ball is timed in the air versus how long the ball is traveling in distance, so there's a time/distance relationship that needs to be attained. That's an area we want to continue to improve on in terms of our longer punts. If they get over 53 or 54 yards, he starts to lose that relationship and when you do that, you're putting your coverage team in a tough spot.
I think another thing that goes unnoticed for Jake is his ability to pin our opponents deep in their own territory. He does a nice job with that and has a nice touch on the ball.
Does Jake have stuff to work on and improve? Absolutely. Do I anticipate that he's going to make progress? For sure. He's getting a lot of preseason recognition and rightfully so, but there's a difference between preseason recognition and postseason recognition and how you handle what's being said around you will determine how you grow.
Same thing in the kickoff world. Jake is one of the best. He's rare. There's not a whole lot like him in terms of kicking, because he's also one of the best kickoff guys in the country. His goal, again, we're a directional kickoff team and the placement of his ball is what determines how we go on with our business -- it's critical. If you put a ball in the middle of the field, it gives the kick return team a 53-yard field to work with. Now, if we put the ball out by the numbers, we're cutting that field in half or putting it down to a third. So now I've got a chance to put 10 guys into an area that's 18 yards wide versus an area where we're trying to cover 53 yards. So that's another area we need to continue to improve on.
Q: The NCAA approved a new kickoff rule this season. A receiving team can now fair catch a ball inside its 25-yard line and the ball will be placed at the 25.
A: My first impression is I get it because it was done from a safety standpoint. Do I think it will make it safer? Absolutely. That being said, and where you're going to see this, in my opinion, is when teams are overmatched. Like the FBS vs. FCS teams and those types of situations or when a coach comes into the game not having a lot of confidence in his team returning the ball beyond the 25. Do I think anyone in the Pac-12 or Notre Dame is going to fair catch on a play where they can potentially score and change the course of a game? No, I don't think so.
Q: Will the rule alter your coverage or return strategy?
A: I don't believe so. We're going to prepare to cover every kick. Now, it's like a tip of the cap to your coverage team if the return team chooses to fair catch.
For us, the minimal acceptable return goal is the 25. We believe we're going to get beyond that every time.
Q: When kicking off, are touchbacks always the goal?
A: Our kickoff coverage was really good. I want to say the starting point last year was about the 22-yard line. You never tell a kicker going into a week, 'Hey, let's really knock the heck out of this one because so-and-so's back there and we don't really want him to return it.' Typically, what happens, is that those go to about the 10-yard line and that guy is hitting it running. We just focus on the same hit every time. Any time we're hitting it deep, it's all about location, distance and hang time.
Q: First-year starter Jet Toner converted 21-of-26 field goals and all 54 extra point attempts last season. He also led the team in scoring with 117 points. What are you expectations for him?
A: He started off really well. He was 13-of-13 before he missed and then settled down a little down the stretch. I thought he did a good job handling himself and there were no ups and downs. When I recruited Jet, one of the things I loved about him was that mental makeup. When you see him make a kick, you don't really see him jump up and down or fist pump. He remains calm, high-fives a couple guys, and jogs off the field. I think he handled that part of it well and being a freshman, being over 80 percent and being in championship games while handling all of that, I'd say it was a good year for him.
Going into this year, I say we start off going perfect from 40 yds and in. With 50 yards and over, you want to be at 50 percent. We have a lot of faith and trust in his ability. There's some technique stuff with Jet that we've been working on to help smooth his game out and I think you will continue to see his numbers grow. We're blessed because I think Collin Riccitelli is an exceptional backup. He'll push Jet, they're really good friends and they love to compete.
Q: Long snappers and holders are often overlooked. You are fortunate to have two veterans at those important spots.
A: Richard McNitzky is our long snapper and is very dependable. He's done a lot of off-season work on his short snapping to improve. He's done a great job for us with punt snapping and he's been money. Timing is an important aspect with the snap. We're trying to get rid of the ball in under 1.9 seconds from the moment it leaves the snapper's hands to when the ball is kicked. Jake Bailey handles our holding duties and does a terrific job.