re: is it time to start looking thru DII schools for Punter?

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Against Texas A&M, Alabama freshman punter Skyler DeLong rolled out to his right during his six punts this past weekend. A caller asked Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban about rugby-style punts during his call-in radio show Thursday evening, and Saban explained why DeLong’s drop was similar to the style many punters across the college football landscape choose to use.

“I think one of the reasons is it’s easy to protect, No. 1, because you’re rolling out basically when you punt,” Saban said. “It’s almost like if you’re blitzing the quarterback and he can roll out, if he gets by one guy, you have no pressure. Well, it’s a similar thing. The rugby punt is very difficult to field. You get a lot of roll. We don’t really want to rugby punt, aight. So, for those of you out there that think because we’ve rolled with our punter a few times -- we’re trying to get him to develop confidence into being able to punt.

“He’s a freshman. He punts very well in practice. We get in the game, he gets nervous and he’s moving the wall around and drops the ball bad, inside, outside. So, that’s a matter of confidence, so we’re trying to find a style that fits him. We don’t need to rugby punt. We can kick it right, we can kick it left, we can kick it down the middle. We have coverage patterns to do whatever he can do. He’s done a pretty job of Aussie kicking when we do the (end-over-end stuff). And we’ve downed some balls inside the 10-yard line.

“But his consistency is something that we need to work on. We tried the rugby style just trying to get him to be able to develop confidence in doing that, thinking it would be a little easier for him. So, it’s a work in progress, but I think if he develops confidence, he’ll be a good punter. But that is the advantage of rugby punts. It starts with the protection, it’s hard to field.”

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