The ACC Coastal is Flooded With Awfulness

The Atlantic Coast Conference is atrocious! The conference is filled with sub-par teams, outright disappointments, one lost soul, and one super power. Without Clemson, the super power of the conference, it could be argued that the entire conference be relegated to the “Group of Five”. Frankly, the Coastal Division (which consists of seven of the fourteen teams in the ACC) is essentially a basket of disappointment and unpredictability, and because of that, mediocrity produces entertainment.

Other than Georgia Tech, which is the dumpster fire of not only the Coastal Division but the entire conference, the Coastal Division is very much up for grabs. There isn’t one team who is undefeated in league play and no team has more than four wins upon reaching the midpoint of the 2019 season. There is currently a three-way tie for first place in the division (Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia) and in turn, a chance at being the sacrificial lamb to Clemson’s buzz saw during the ACC Conference Championship game in Charlotte.

The Coastal Division has been a crap shoot for nearly a decade. A good tavern trivia question would be when was the last time an ACC Coastal Division Team won the ACC Conference in football? The answer would be the 2010 season when Virginia Tech knocked off Florida State. Now, in more recent times, the conference champion is exclusively from the Atlantic Division and, if it wasn’t for the Jameis Winston years at Florida State, the champion is almost exclusively Clemson. According to vegasinsider.com, in the past decade less than half of all the ACC Championship Games had a line less than or equal to a touchdown.  This  seems to be accurate as from 2008 to 2018 the Championship game has been decided by more than a touchdown six times.

Obviously, it is a hasty generalization to suppose that a division of a conference is inadequate due to its lack of conference championships. Usually each conference is dominated by a few schools in the division. For instance, in the Big Ten the usual contenders for the conference crown are Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State (all from the East Division). Though one of these teams usually achieves the Big Ten Championship, it isn’t as like they face little to no competition from the West. On the contrary, the ACC Costal has been decreasing in the amount of top 25 teams since its peak in 2009 when it had three top 25 teams at the end of the year. The Coastal cratered last year when the division failed to crack the Top 25 – it’s looking to repeat such a feat in 2019.

The reasoning for such poor performances can be attributed to mixture of two components. The first being players. The other is coaching and coaching turnover. If recruiting was the issue, it would be easy to presume that the Coastal Division teams would routinely be unable to enter the top half of the ACC’s yearly recruiting rankings. According to rivals.com, a website that focuses on college football and basketball recruiting, there has never been a year in which the Atlantic Division outnumbered the Coastal Division in terms of making the top half of the conference’s recruiting rankings. Actually, eight of these eleven years there were an equal number of Atlantic Division and Coastal Division teams in the top half, while the other three years there were four Coastal Division teams to two Atlantic Division Teams. There is no doubt that the recruiting classes may vary drastically even within the top half of the conference, but there is reason to believe, especially the years in which the Coastal Division had better recruiting classes than the Atlantic, such as 2009, 2011, and 2014, that the Coastal Division would be able to produce more top 25 teams. This appears not to be the case. The years proceeding both 2009 and 2011 failed to garner the Coastal Division more than one team to reach the Top 25.  Only in the years immediately proceeding the 2014 season was the Coastal Division able to muster 2 teams to reach the Top 25. In other words, the failure of the Coastal Division, especially the teams that routinely ranked in the top six in terms of the conference recruiting rankings (Miami and Virginia Tech), is not the players’ fault but more so the coaches’ inability to utilize the talent that they have acquired.

Three of the four newly hired ACC head coaches were hired for teams in the Coastal Division. Miami, who on paper looked to be the most talented team in the division, hired their former defensive coordinator, Manny Diaz. Diaz was hired after Miami’s previous head coach, Mark Richt, abruptly departed after three seasons with the team.  Ironically Diaz accepted to be the head coach at Temple, but two weeks later quickly turned around and returned to Miami to takeover the reigns. Mack Brown, the former longtime head coach of Texas and also ESPN College Football Analyst, returns to his previous employer by becoming the head coach of the University of North Carolina again (he was there previously from 1988 to 1997). Geoff Collins is the new head coach of Georgia Tech and with his creative recruiting techniques he hopes to get Georgia Tech moving in the right direction. Virginia Tech’s head coach, Jeff Fuente, became the ACC Coach of the Year in his first year at the school by going 10-4 and winning the Coastal Division. However, that may be the high-water mark of his tenure at Virginia Tech due to each proceeding season becoming bleaker.

The Coastal Division is now this pathetic, self-indulgent cluster of universities which whenever they face disappointment, rely on romanticizing their past instead of coming to the reality that they stink. Every time a Miami fan throws up the “U”, or whenever a Hokie relishes the days of its long time head coach, Frank Beamer, it’s  hard to resist comparing their expression to a Cincinnati Reds’ pre-game “pump up” promo in which 95% consists of the Big Red Machine (i.e. highlights nearly half a century old). It’s great to remember the past, but it’s even more important to understand what made that past glorious and to use those same strategies in the present.

SAVE THE ONSIDE KICK!

It was the year 1921 that changed the fate of football forever. In a game between the Vanderbilt Commodores and University of Georgia Athenians (they were not named the Bulldogs, yet, and personally Athenians sounds cooler than the generic high school football team name of “Bulldogs.”) the Commodores, down by a touchdown, attempted and recovered a 25-yard onside kick for a touchdown to tie the game. That was the first written documentation of an onside kick in football history. It would be hard to believe that the onside kick would die in everything but in name 97 years later.

In recent NFL football history, there have been two monumental, game changing, onside kicks and both would be ruled illegal by today’s NFL rules. The first, which could arguably be the play that changed the game, occurred in Super Bowl XLIV in which the New Orleans Saints, who were down 10-6 at the opening kickoff of the third quarter, surprised the Indianapolis Colts by attempting and recovering an onside kick. The Saints would not only make history in winning their first Super Bowl but would also be the first onside kick to be attempted before the fourth quarter in Super Bowl history. The Saints referred to this play as “Ambush.” The second notable onside kick also occurred in the NFL postseason. During the 2015 NFC Championship Game in which late in the fourth quarter, with the Seattle Seahawks trailing the Green Bay Packers 19-14, the Seahawks opted to attempt an onside kick. Steven Hauschka’s, kicker for Seattle, kick would bounce off the facemask of Packer’s tight end Brand Bostick and into the arms of a Seattle player. The Seahawks would go on to score a touchdown and eventually win the NFC Championship and head to the Super Bowl. If the Seahawks would have failed to recover the onside kick, it is almost certain that Green Bay would have represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.

These were exciting and game changing moments that must be discussed when sports historians go back to recap each respective game. However, both plays can never be replicated again due to NFL kickoff rule changes which took effect in 2018. So, for instance, the onside kick used by the Saints would be illegal because the players on the kickoff team had a running start before the kick. Seattle’s onside kick would also be deemed illegal for both the kickoff team having a running start before the kick and the fact that players were not distributed evenly on either side of the kicker. There were four players to Hauschka’s left, while six to his right.

Over the past decade the amount of onside kick attempts was steadily increasing and reaching its climax in 2015, but then steadily declined and has continued to do so at a rapid pace through the current 2019 season. Surprisingly the amount of onside kick recoveries has steadily hovered around eight until, as expected with the rule changes, in 2018 in which the recoveries dropped to 4 (out of 53 attempts a whopping 8% recovery rate) and, so far, zero recoveries through week 6 of the 2019 NFL season.

The NFL’s reasoning for changing the rules of kickoffs is to limit the amount of serious injuries that result from kickoffs. This, to everyone but Donald J. Trump, makes a lot of sense. Having full grown ogres of men rushing at high speeds into each other can likely cause serious injuries. Ironically, the NFL did not get rid of the kickoff entirely because of, not in spite of, the need to preserve the onside kick. However, and as the graph has shown, the rule changes have caused the chances of recovering an onside kick to disappear. Realistically the only way that a kicking team could conceivably recover an onside kick is to hope that a player on the receiving team fails to catch the ball and in turn, the kicking team recovers. This is essentially what happened in the 2015 NFC Championship game. Also, the rules eliminate an element of surprise that the Saints took advantage of when they ran their “Ambush” play.

Ladies and gentlemen The Cornercube has deemed the onside kick to be officially listed on the “NFL Extinct Play Watch List!” This play is on life support if not already brain dead. The onside kick is not nearly as extinct as the “wedge block” (which is outlawed for safety reasons that everyone can understand but Donald J. Trump) but more extinct than the fullback position. So, just like the World Wildlife Fund wants to save the Iberian Lynx, The Cornercube wants to save the onside kick. The most obvious solution is to maintain the current kickoff rules, but only require the ball to travel 5 yards instead of ten before the kicking team is permitted to touch the ball. This would allow the kicking team to get closer to the ball sooner, and also maintain the safety rules that were instated in 2018. A similar, but slightly different idea was introduced by Deadspin’s writer, Drew Magary, who suggested move the receiving team back five yards. In the end both suggestions maintain what the NFL had substantially before, while not compromising the safety initiatives or the excitement that comes about with the onside kick. Magary best summarizes what these onside kick revisions would accomplish: “I want what I had. I want nervous hands teams. I want kickers going into the laboratory and experimenting with the Rabona, conspiring with special teams coaches to get the maximum amount of both bounce and chaos from drubbing a ball off the turf.”

Both solutions maintain the onside kick play, and in turn preserve a piece of football lore. However, if the kickoff is on the decline and the fear of injuries is causing hesitancy in altering the kickoff rules, should the onside kick be replaced with an all or nothing “fourth down play?” This has been discussed before and has even been thrown out there by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Essentially to maintain possession of the ball, when a kickoff would have occurred, the “kicking team” (in this case the offense) would have to convert a 4^th and 15 play or fourth and 20 from their own 25-yard line. If the offense makes this all or nothing down, they get to maintain their drive, but if they fail the “receiving team” (defense) would assume possession. This idea was tried in the now defunct Alliance of American Football (“AAF”). Mike Florio, from NBC’s Pro Football Talk, summarized what the AFF attempted, “if a team trails by 17 or more points or if the team that just scored trails by any amount with fewer than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, that team can choose to try to convert a fourth-and-12 play from its own 28. If the team gains 12 or more yards in that one play, it keeps possession. If it doesn’t, the other team takes possession.”

There is only one guarantee and that is the NFL must do something to fix the onside kick. It’s not too late to save it! Do it for the Athenians!

NFL Kicking Has Never Been Better

“Double doink!” were the words uttered by NBC Football announcer’s, Cris Collinsworth’s nasally, Southern accent, as Codey Parkey, the former place-kicker of the Chicago Bears, missed a 2018 game winning NFC wild-card playoff game field goal. Just as Collinsworth so eloquently described, it wasn’t just a missed field goal, it was the fact the ball bounced off both the goal post’s left upright and its crossbar. Parkey isn’t the only kicker in recent memory to have misfortune when toe meets leather. Blair Walsh, the former Minnesota Viking place-kicker, failed to make a game winning 27-yard field goal against the Seattle Seahawks in the 2016 NFC wild-card game. Walsh was a first-team All-Pro in 2012, and prior to the missed game winning field goal, he was three for three in that playoff game. Parkey was named to the 2015 NFL Pro Bowl (albeit as a replacement for Stephen Gostkowski, legendary place-kicker for the New England Patriots, who was involved with the Super Bowl and so could not attend the Pro Bowl).

The quote, “life turns on a dime” couldn’t be more appropriate for the shelf life of an NFL kicker. That is why The Cornercube has decided to dive into an investigative journalism piece to determine if NFL field kicking (not extra point kicking. We have only so many people on the investigative journalism team), has become worse over the years. The answer is that it has not, and we have the stats to prove it!

 

You might be thinking, “When did The Cornercube afford Excel?”  The short answer is we finally ponied up and pirated a version of Microsoft Office! Enough of our gloating, it’s time to get back to the analytics.

As one can see the data shows that the percentage of field goals being made has steadily increased, even as the number of attempts has doubled since the 1960’s average. In the 2010 decade, which is not fully complete, there is a record completion percentage of nearly 85%.  In other words, people, The Cornercube has declared the NFL to be in an era of field goal dominance! In the NFL there have only been 20 field goals made from at least 60 yards and 13 of those 20 were made in the 2010 decade. This includes the longest field goal made in NFL history when in 2013 Matt Prater, then the place-kicker of the Denver Broncos, bombed a 63 yarder through the uprights.

So what has caused this glorious era to ignite, when in the 1960’s just over half of all field goals were made? There are two reasons. The first is technique and the second is football obsession.

In the 1960’s Pete Gogolak, a Hungarian-born place-kicker (please do not get upset I stated his nationality because it will come in handy later) revolutionized the way the oblong shaped ball was kicked. Prior to Gogolak, all place-kickers approached the ball straight on, but with Pete’s European soccer background he decided that by kicking the ball at an angle could cover more distance than the traditional style of place-kicking. In 1964 Pete played for the Buffalo Bills and the “soccer-style” place- kick was adopted by the NFL. By the late 1970’s the soccer-style kick was used around the entire NFL. So with the place-kicker’s field goal range extended due to a technique change, the place-kickers were able to attempt more kicks and therefore make more kicks.

However, the most recent change to why place-kicking has vastly improved over time is because America has slowly become a nation that eats, sleeps, and breathes football. In a 2014 New York Times article by Joe Lemire, he stated, “[w]hile there have been changes in technique . . . the primary impetus for improvement has been more dynamic training and specialization, often at a younger age.” Lemire goes on to describe how in 1995 only about a dozen kickers and punters had college football scholarships, but now nearly all Division I college football programs offer scholarships to specialists. There are even websites, such as ProKicker.com, in which a person can find the nearest kicking, punting, or even long snapping camp by state (Tennessee has 8 kicking camps scheduled from 2019-2020. That’s more than football crazy Texas or Ohio). There are even areas in which a person can find, by state, private instruction on how to kick, punt, or long snap a football (I guess they assume you’re an idiot, if you need private lessons on how to be a holder).

So, if America is in the glory days of place kicking, why are people claiming that there seems to be more issues than usual with kickers? There are two reasons for such a mentality. First, with the advancement of the internet, more people having access to television and various streaming devices, it causes more eyeballs to be able to watch more games. Therefore, when a person misses a game winning kick, more people are able to see the miss and, in turn, reprimand that kicker. The second reason is that Americans have gotten comfortable with the 85% field goal make percentage. Hence, there is even less room for error. In other words, imagine if the average was just over half, like in the ‘60s or even ‘70s.  A missed field goal wouldn’t be unusual, and a below average kicker would be considered to be one who missed more than half of his field goals.

Place-kickers have “placed” themselves in a paradox. Every time they get better, and their attempt percentage goes up, their room for error decreases. In a weird sense it would incentivize all current kickers to teach kids how to kick incorrectly so the efficiency decreases and the room for error increases. In other words, place-kickers who lose their jobs should just blame the old Hungarian – Pete Gogolak!