Special Teams thread

[Verbal]

One of the glaring weaknesses Iowa has had over the past couple of years has been a lack of solid, consistent play on special teams. However, this year's team could potentially be pretty solid on special teams. Here's what I got:

Punter: Ryan Donahue was pretty shaky early on last year, but came on strong as the season progressed. He'll be an All-Big Ten punter before he's done.

Holder: Donahue handles this job well too.

Long-snapper: Andrew Schulze did a good job last year, and I expect he'll continue to put the ball where it needs to be.

Kicker: Undoubtedly a weakness last year. Neither Signor nor Murray was consistent last year. With Trent Mossbrucker coming in, I think we'll see a pretty good battle for the kicking job in camp.

Punt returner: Chaney is listed as the returner, with Sandeman the back-up coming out of spring ball. I'm ok with either of these guys. Other options here include Brodell, Jordan Bernstine, or maybe Amari Spievey. Or perhaps a newcomer like Demarco Paine will get on the field right away returning punts.

Kick returner: DJK and Paul Chaney are listed as the returners. These are the right two guys to have back there, IMO, and with some better blocking, we're going to see a run-back or two this year.

Coverage teams: These need some improvement, but I do look forward to seeing the Dubuque missile, a/k/a Jayme Murphy, blow some returners up again this year.

[MikeyJoe]

I really hope Mossbrucker competes for that starting kicking job. Our kicking has been woefully inadequate since Kaeding left, and it's not just on field goals. Kaeding made a huge difference with his placement on kickoffs. He excelled at getting a lot of hangtime and dropping the ball inside the five. I think some of the problems we've had with kickoff coverage in the past few years are attritributable to the ball getting down there too quickly.

On a return side, I hope we can finally get some things going from a playmaker perspective. Kirk has always preferred putting a good hands guy there to avoid the muffed kicks, but hopefully we'll start to see some longer returns, especially with DJK on the kick return team. He showed a lot of potential there last year.

[scottsdalehawk]

I think the special teams will indeed have to be "special" for the Hawks to have a 8 or 9 win season. The special teams were the often over-looked aspect of those 10 win teams a few years ago.

[Soda Popinski]

I thought this would be about Crazy Hawks softball career.

[Gushawk]

Call me crazy, but I like Brodell on punts.

And we should save Murphy for the Big 10 season. You can't do what he does all that many times without eventually getting hurt.