Last week I compared the field goal stats for the twenty semifinalists for the 2019 Lou Groza Award. This week let’s look at their effectiveness at kicking off, a stat generally ignored on the website and announcements of the Groza Award committee.
Georgia’s Rodrigo Blankenship has the highest touchback percentage among the semifinalists. Unlike his two closest competitors (Michigan’s Sloman and East Carolina’s Verity), Hot Rod has not booted a kickoff out of bounds all year. When you factor in out of bounds kickoffs, Rodrigo has had the fewest kickoffs returned all year.
TB%.KO.TB.OB.ret.YD.avg.TD
74.1 58 43 0 09 179 19.9 0 SR Blankenship GA
73.3 45 33 5 06 112 18.7 0 SR S Sloman Mich
69.6 56 39 3 12 310 25.8 0 JR J Verity E Car
58.5 65 38 0 20 365 18.3 0 JR Patterson Mem
53.9 76 41 0 28 513 18.3 0 FR G Brkic OK
53.2 47 25 1 19 601 31.6 0 SR Rohrwasser Mar
51.1 47 24 0 14 242 17.3 0 SR C Limpert Ark
29.8 47 14 0 20 445 22.3 1 JR AJ Reed Duke
25.4 59 15 3 24 569 23.7 1 SO N Sciba WF
Inexplicably, over half the kickers nominated for best kicker do not even handle their team’s kickoff duties – including two of the top three field goal kickers from my analysis last week: Mazza and Song (Blankenship also rated in the top three, even before adding four field goals last Saturday against Missouri). How can they be considered for the Groza Award?
SR Logan Justus Indiana does not handle kickoffs
SR Matt Ammendola Ok St does not handle kickoffs
SO Blake Grupe Ark State does not handle kickoffs
FR Brandon Talton Nev does not handle kickoffs
SO Blake Mazza Wash State does not handle kickoffs
SO Peyton Henry Wash does not handle kickoffs
SO Christopher Dunn NC State does not handle kickoffs
JR Brent Cimaglia Tenn does not handle kickoffs
JR Keith Duncan Iowa does not handle kickoffs
SR Jonathan Song TCU not listed
SR Jake Koehnke Air Force not listed
Blankenship, Verity, and Duncan were named this week’s Groza Award’s stars of the week. Last week Rodrigo made four field goals and two point-afters. Duncan connected on three field goals and one PAT. Verity booted three field goals and six PATs.
No comments:
Post a Comment