Tuesday, September 15, 2009 11:36 AM CDT
You get big kick out of watching the Green Wave punt sometimes
By Brian Nielsen, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
By now, upcoming Mattoon football opponents know this: They don’t really know what the Green Wave will do on fourth down.
The past Friday on fourth-down-and-6 yards to go at his own 30-yard line, the center’s snap went to running back Vince Anello who then pitched the ball to quarterback/punter Michael Heller, who got away a 44-yard punt bouncing away from Normal Community unable to make a return.
Later in that first quarter, Heller got the snap directly, rolled out and punted the ball for 33 yards.
Heller also had a more conventional 40-yard punt in that first quarter.
Granted, on a fourth-and-9 from its 22-yard line in the third quarter, Mattoon tried a fake punt with Heller’s 7-yard run short of the first down giving Normal a too easy scoring chance.
Then there was the 17-yard punt leading to another quick touchdown for the Ironmen in their 47-7 win over Mattoon.
But you can’t say new Green Wave coach Troy Johnson does not make things interesting.
He has brought back to me the rugby punt I enjoyed so much in that 2005 Eastern Illinois playoff season when Jeff Choate was the Panthers’ special teams coach before moving on to more of a national spotlight at Boise State.
“What we really do is not necessarily rugby,” Johnson said. “I can run every play we have in the offense on fourth down.”
Accordingly, Mattoon does not have a punt team. It has a four-down offense with the option of punting.
This is a tactic Johnson has had in his successful IHSA playoff years with Marshall teams usually more talented than Little Illini Conference competition and last year when he was the special teams coach for a usually outmanned Indiana State program going through an 0-12 season.
Certainly, he sees this unorthodox punting game for Mattoon in the Big 12 Conference so has his special teams coordinator Chris Bazant instituting this style.
“We’re going against a lot of good athletes,” Johnson said. “Why give them another play? It still baffles me that they would kick to a Devin Hester. Why would you give them one more chance?”
So usually, ideally, the Devin Hesters of the Big 12 are just chasing down bouncing punts near sidelines rather than catching the ball on the fly and speeding past the Wave punt team.
Having an athletic quarterback like Heller with the ability to run, punt and pass – and savvy to choose when to do which one – helps.
“There are times I don’t give him the option,” Johnson said. “I’ll say ‘You will kick.’
“Normally, most of your quarterbacks are able to kick, at least for what we want. We’re not asking them to give you four seconds hang time.”
Instead, defenses are having to be ready for a fourth-down run or pass and then at times retreat to where, who knows a punt could bounce off an opposing player giving Mattoon the chance to recover.
No, this is not a perfect, fool-proof deal.
“It’s hard for a guy to roll and see the defense coming and punt it,” Johnson said. “That’s not an easy gig. If you look at returns, nobody has returned it for a touchdown. Now we’ve kicked some for 15 yards out of bounds.”
While fixing some of those special teams shortcomings might get some attention preparing for Friday’s 7 p.m. home game against Urbana, the focus of this week’s Mattoon practice is likely to be tackling.
“Coach (Jarad) Kimbro counted up missed tackles,” Johnson said of his defensive coordinator’s film review of Friday’s loss. “He counted 33. We were watching the film and saw 3-yard gains or 5-yard losses and we don’t make plays and it’s a 60-yard touchdown.
“This falls on the linebackers coach, which is me.”
Yes, Johnson realizes that Decatur MacArthur, Danville and Normal have all had talented running backs not exactly easy to tackle.
The Wave coach is also letting his players know that in his playing days as an Indiana State linebacker, he had to make allowances and play the angles against faster athletes on his way to getting a chance in the New York Jets preseason camp.
“A guy like me, most of the guys I was tackling were better athletes than me,” Johnson said. “You have to funnel them, get them going in one direction and use the sideline. It’s tough. It’s not as easy as it looks.
“That will definitely be the focus. We’ll use all our time on defense (Monday) on open-field tackling with what we’re doing.”
After facing three teams that have at least gotten votes in state rankings – two of them in the higher Class 6A – Mattoon gets this Friday home game against Urbana in a match-up of two 0-3 Class 5A teams.
But Mattoon is likely to play shorthanded.
Two offensive linemen were injured early in last week’s game at Normal. Dalton Erwin is likely to miss this week’s game and maybe next week as well while Johnson was still awaiting word about Nic Thomas.
Already out from the previous week and likely done for the season were linebacker Jake Gates and receiver/defensive back Albert Adkins.
Brian Nielsen is sports editor of the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier. Contact him at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
|
|
