If you work hard all week and work on the details in practice, you have a good chance to keep things from going off the rails in games. For everything except special teams, that is.
“On offense you run a play for zero yards, and you get up and do it again. On defense you can give up five yards, and you get up and do it again. But with special teams play, you get one shot. You don’t get second chances. You have one chance to do it, or one chance to defend it. It can change the complexity of the game so readily.” — Bill Snyder, Kansas State head coach, circa 2004
In the following game, Kansas State was drubbed 45-21 by Fresno State. A shanked punt and a penalty for interfering with the ability to catch a punt played a role in the loss.
This past Saturday against Weber State, Montana State’s special teams did a lot worse than KSU in the first half alone. The Bobcats gave up a 100-yard kickoff return, fumbled a kickoff return, missed a field goal and — what appeared to bother MSU head coach Brent Vigen most — failed to down a punt near the goal line. All told, those miscues helped WSU build a 27-17 halftime lead before the Bobcats scored 21 unanswered points to take control of the game late in the fourth quarter.
Earlier this week, Vigen went into detail about the importance of that first-quarter punt.
“Those opportunities in that part of the field, if we don’t execute that type of punt and pin them, you kind of feel like we could have just as well gone for it,” Vigen said. “And in that instance, I felt like we had an opportunity to pin them, and there were a couple factors. We probably didn’t have quite enough hang time, but it was close. And then both of our guys being able to pick that ball up. It was a bright day here in Bozeman on Saturday, so could we have navigated the sun a little bit different from a call perspective? So, I just felt like we left one out there.”
Pinning teams deep in their own end of the field with punts hasn’t happened much for MSU, which has caused Vigen some consternation. And that was just the first in a string of special teams errors in the second quarter alone, as MSU found itself trailing by 10 at halftime.
“Maybe it’s an increased frustration that our ability to pin people inside the five just hasn’t happened enough, because we have the ability,” Vigen said. “We punted two times on Saturday, so whether you punt a lot or a little, you want that unit to be difference-making, because I think we have the capability of it. Whether it’s Colby (Frokjer) as a punter or the guys that go down to cover. And in that moment, we didn’t make a difference. It was a pretty innocuous play, and that’s not what we’re after.”
The failures possibly gave WSU 10 points and cost MSU three, which equates to a 13-point swing, all else being equal.
“It was all three phases,” Vigen said. “We left some points on the board offensively. Defensively, we couldn’t get off the field. On special teams, between the kick return touchdown, the fumbled kick return, the blocked field goal at the end (of the first half), we left ourselves a decided disadvantage as far as special teams go. So again, coach up the things that we can continue to improve upon but really praise the response that we had out of the half.”
The kickoff return was especially tough on the Bobcats, as it came after one of the most impressive drives of the season, which covered 72 yards on 17 plays and lasted nearly eight minutes. MSU converted a fourth-and-6 midway through the drive, and there were no penalties.
Dyson Parker’s return started off on the wrong foot for the Wildcats, as he caught the ball while backpedaling a couple of yards deep into the end zone. With momentum working against him, Parker darted diagonally toward the middle of the field into a throng of Bobcats, went through them untouched and outran four MSU players to score on the opposite side of the end zone.
“As many times as we get touchbacks, you can never count on that ball being a touchback,” Vigen said. “And whether there was a little comfort or relaxation, we didn’t lay a finger on that guy on their kick return. And that is after a week where we covered kicks like crazy. But we knew, going into Eastern with the wind, there probably was a likelihood. So, I think a great learning lesson that, like it or not, Colby might not hit a touchback every time, because that was a lower kick. It didn’t have much hang time. The guy actually caught it in the end zone, but it got to him so quickly he was able to bring it out.”
After another WSU touchdown put the Bobcats in a 24-17 hole, they looked to answer with just under two minutes to go in the half. Jared White got a rare chance to return the kickoff, and as he made strides toward the middle of the field, the ball was popped loose and recovered by WSU. The MSU defense held the Wildcats to a field goal, and the Bobcats still had over a minute to make amends.
The Bobcats looked primed to do some damage control as Myles Sansted was put in position to cut the lead to 27-20, only to see his attempt blocked as time expired. MSU drove 56 yards on eight plays in less than a minute in an effort that was all for naught.
“Conversely, Jared hasn’t gotten a lot of opportunities, but if they can, they want to kick it to our off-returner,” Vigen said. “We’ve got to feel like we can function there, and everybody else at the same time knows if that ball’s going a different direction, well, I’ve got to figure that out, because now (primary kick returner) Jabez (Woods) becomes a blocker, and it was ultimately that guy that got a hand on it.”
While the Bobcats came back and played well on special teams in the second half, Vigen realizes the first-half formula will come back to bite his crew if it continues.
“Not that we don’t impress the value of each of those opportunities on these guys, but living through that, if that game created a little different sense of urgency, I think we responded fairly well in the second half with the special teams unit,” Vigen said. “But ultimately, to be down essentially 13 points: they score a touchdown, they turn one turnover into a field goal, then we miss a field goal, we get a field goal blocked. That is not a winning formula by any means.”
It wasn’t the first slow start for the team this season. The Bobcats fell behind Central Connecticut State 21-7 early in the second half, were tied with Northern Arizona 14-14 at halftime, trailed Idaho 20-17 just before halftime and led Eastern Washington only 14-6 before Cole Taylor all but single-handedly broke the game open with a pair of interception returns in the final two minutes of the half that put MSU up 28-6 going into the locker room.
“Creating momentum early in the game, I guess, is what I’m most excited for us to be able to do,” Vigen said. “And whether there’s a back-and-forth nature to the first half, can we grab the momentum early and not get ourselves into that tight situation that some of these games have presented?”
The Bobcats have relied on their resiliency for the better part of the last six games. Vigen gives them credit for that but also realizes it’s like playing with fire and can result in the kind of outcome MSU had when it lost to Idaho on the last play of the game after a fourth-quarter meltdown gave away a 34-20 lead.
“I think resiliency is a good quality to have,” Vigen said. “It’s not something you want to have to go to each and every game. You have to reset. You’ve got to allow yourself to be coached, and then you’ve got to go out and execute in the second half.”
The Bobcats hit the field again Saturday when they entertain the Cal Poly Mustangs at Bobcat Stadium. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.
