Arizona football roundtable: How bad are the Wildcats’ special teams

Have you ever seen anything like this?

The Arizona Wildcats have been flat-out atrocious in the return game this year, and you could argue it’s kept them from winning a Pac-12 game to this point of the season.

It’s so bad that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team get so badly outplayed in this particular phase of the game, and I feel it should cost Charlie Ragle his job. But now everyone else on the staff can say if they’ve seen anything like this.

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Gabe Encinas: Field position is everything and Arizona has given up great field position and has been putting themselves in bad position, whether that’s because of a poor return or stagnant offense.

It’s just really disheartening to see such poor results from the kick return game and kickoff coverage. No matter who goes back on kick return, you can count on a really head-scratching 15-yard return, and then maybe a return to the 20. Then you can count on the kickoff coverage to allow a drive to start at around the 30 at least.

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Alec Sills-Trausch: I hate to remind you all about Zendejas… and the 2010 and 2011 seasons which made me literally sick one year (I got food poisoning during a U of A game). In those years, kicking was awful and it seemed like we muffed punts on the daily. It also quite evident that our supreme leader Jason will only consider this season a success if he gets Ragle fired.

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James Schlittenhart: Probably, but it’s hard to think of one off the cuff. That said, given the rate at which Arizona is forced to bring the punting unit on the field (see: 75th in the country at third down conversions), the probability for mistakes tends to grow.

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Drake Horner: I don’t think I’ve seen an Arizona team with good special teams in my lifetime. I’m used to it at this point. It’s 2016 and I still cringe when Arizona lines up for a PAT. Field position is the biggest thing. Josh Pollack was terrible against Utah and we saw what a good punter can do for you thanks to the Utes. There needs to be better field positioning to win games. Kickoff coverage is horrendous and kick return isn’t much better.

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Ryan Kelapire: I just watched the San Diego Chargers have an 18-yard punt and have their holder fail at setting a snap on Sunday, so Arizona might not be the worst ever at special teams, but it’s not good, that’s for sure.

It’s weird because the kicking game has probably been better than anticipated, but the kickoff and punt coverage is horrendous.

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Ronnie Stoffle: I can’t think of another example. We should not have to worry about lackluster performances from the special teams unit. In general, fair or not, I think it is a unit that is always underappreciated until there is a clear blunder. Their overall poor performance has compounded frustrations with the other glaring issues on offense and defense.

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David Potts: The difference between this year and previous disappointments on special teams for Arizona is that the return game has been awful while the kicking game has been okay. Football Study Hall ranks the Wildcats 115th in FBS in Punt Return Success Rate and 106th in Kick Return Success Rate. In other words, based on where the kicks are fielded, the Wildcats make a better-than-average return between 20-30% of the time. That’s awful, particularly for a team in a major conference. The kicking game has been fine - Pollack has made all his PATs and a reasonable number of his field goals - but the return game needs a ton of work.

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Steve Apter: It's a depth issue. This team has been hit pretty hard by injuries over the past two years and this incoming class will provide a few much-needed bodies that can contribute on special teams including six secondary players for coverage units.

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Brandon Combs: Well the San Diego Chargers are doing worse in my opinion, but Arizona needs some kind of spark on special teams, that's for sure.

The returns have been lackluster and the coverage has, well, not been good. When you give your opponent great field position and yourself horrible position, it's hard to win. Arizona needs to find an answer fast, especially since they'll be facing one of the most explosive return men in Adoree’ Jackson on Saturday.

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