109: Special teams
Are college kickers getting more accurate? Plus this is Carolina football.
Over the weekend, Temple’s Maddux Trujillo made a 64-yard field goal in a win over Utah State. It’s the longest made field goal in the past 16 collegiate seasons.
Last Friday, Stanford’s Emmet Kenney drilled a game-winning 39-yard field goal as the Cardinal earned their first ACC football win at Syracuse1. Kenney made all four of his field goal attempts with an average distance of ~41 yards.
And through the first two weeks of the NFL season, kickers had made nearly 90% (35-of-39) field goals from 50 plus yards. Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg wrote about how a rule change might be in place because kickers have gotten so good2.
It got me thinking: are college kickers getting more accurate too?
Through the first four weeks of the collegiate season, kickers have made 58% (51-of-88) of field goals from 50+ yards. In the previous two entire seasons, college kickers made ~48% of 50+ yard field goal attempts in 2023 and ~49% in 2022.
Overall, college kickers are making about ~75% of all field goal attempts, which is nearly identical to the past couple seasons.
The sample size is too small to make any sort of sweeping conclusion. It’s something to continue to monitor as the season moves forward though.
This is Carolina football
James Madison humiliated North Carolina Saturday, the Dukes won 70-50.
It’s the most points ever allowed to an opponent at home. It ties the most points ever allowed to an opponent at any location3.
Sticking with the special teams theme of this post, James Madison blocked a punt for a touchdown five minutes into the game.
Going back to the start of the 2019 season, Carolina has allowed eight blocked punts and two for touchdowns. This is the most amongst all NCAA teams4.
The blocked punts allowed5 is only one example of troubling trends for Carolina football over the past few seasons.
It’s the fourth time over the past five seasons that Carolina has allowed at least 50 or more points by an opponent.
Saturday’s loss was the eighth example of Carolina losing outright as a double-digit favorite. Since the start of the 2022 season, UNC has lost four games outright as a double-digit favorite and three of those games have been in Chapel Hill.
It’s also the second time in the past 10 months the head coach has had to answer questions about retirement. This one was self-inflicted.
Over the past 36 years, only three people have served 69 or more games as head coach at North Carolina.
Mack Brown from 1988 to 1997
John Bunting from 2001 to 2006
Larry Fedora from 2012 to 2018
Mack Brown from 2019 to present
Carolina’s record through those first 69 games under each head coach:
35-34 Mack Brown 1.0
24-36 John Bunting
41-28 Larry Fedora
41-28 Mack Brown 2.0
Carolina won 34 of its next 46 games before the Mack Brown 1.0 era ended. The Bunting era ended with only three wins in the next 12 games. Fedora’s era ended with only four wins in the next 19 games.
How does the second iteration of Mack Brown era end?
Maybe Carolina finishes 11-1 or maybe UNC finishes 3-9. The real number is probably somewhere in the middle. Maybe Carolina finds a way to get to eight or nine wins.
And remember, eight or nine wins is pretty good around here.
But isn’t that part of the problem?
North Carolina desperately needs a competent football program in 2024. In an age where college athletics is all about money and other schools are now soliciting fans to pay a talent fee6 on tickets, football provides revenue unlike any other sport.
Carolina needs football to be successful because it needs the money to support other areas of the entire operation. Like it’s 27 other varsity programs.
Code for the charts in this post can be found here. And remember, to check out this tiny app that surfaces college football data. It’s getting more and more useful as conference play picks up. Check it out below:
And for a recommendation this week, check out wkcfb.com. A six-part podcast from Ryan Nanni and Steven Godfrey about who killed college football.
As always, please subscribe if you so choose.
I think a better analysis would be to measure kick percentage in domes or non-domes. I remember UNC’s Dan Orner made three field goals from 50+ yards at Syracuse in 2002.
Almost through week three, NFL kickers percentage from 50+ yards has fallen to ~76%. Insert your best knowledge of a sample size here.
The loss Saturday gave a lot of 2013 ECU vibes since it was in Chapel Hill. Shane Carden, my goodness. Although, the final score gives more 2014 ECU vibes since there were 70 points in Greenville.
It turns out scraping this data is tricker than I imagined. This data includes FBS vs FCS games, and the Louisiana Monroe number made me question if this data was accurate, but it looks like ULM was 0-10 in 2021 with five blocked punts allowed.
The eight blocked punts: 2020 at Florida State (2), 2021 at NC State (2), 2023 at Pittsburgh, 2023 against Syracuse, 2023 at Georgia Tech, and 2024 against James Madison. The other one that went for a touchdown was 2021 at NC State. Two of the blocked punts resulted in Carolina first downs, one against Syracuse and one against NC State.
This interview with Tennessee Athletic Director Danny White is interesting. Someone shouldn’t need to tell you they’re being transparent with fees, it should be obvious. Also, White makes $2.75 million a year. Good for him.