Monday, October 21, 2013

The danger of the "punt safe"

Richt explained why Damian Swann was in to return that punt instead of Reggie Davis. The punt was not fielded cleanly, bounced off of Swann's chest and lead to a Vandy recovery and later a touchdown.
“We were in punt safe,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said Sunday. “If you remember two years ago, they faked the punt on us somewhere around that territory about the same distance. At the time of the game…they were down 13 and the clock’s ticking. We made a great stop and called for the punt safe and when we go punt safe, he’s already on the field and we keep him in there because we’ve got experience catching those balls. That’s designed to be a fair catch anyway. We know when we’re in punt safe, we’re not going to get much of a return. It’s just a matter of fielding the ball. He’s been doing that his whole life. It just hit off his chest.”
Oh, and about that special teams coordinator thing...
“Whether you have a special teams coordinator or not, you’ve got to field the punt, you’ve got to snap the ball, you’ve got to catch the snap,” Richt said. “What does that have to do with whether you’ve got a special teams coordinator or not? It’s just things we’ve got to be able to execute, the basic fundamentals of it. Those guys are very capable and I do have faith that we can get the job done. We’ve got the ability, we’ve just got to be consistent in that way.” 
Consistency. Yup, that's all we're looking for.