Two Alabama punters. One plays in the present day, the other played back in the early-00s.

Skyler DeLong was supposedly one of the nation's top punters coming out of high school, but you wouldn't know it watching him kick the football. Last night he punted for the first time in three weeks. For anyone who watched him kick, I can't remember how far it went, but it had to have been less than 20 yards. In middle school we had a kid who averaged 28 yards per punt and he was 12 years old. DeLong is 19.

Contrast that with Lane Bearden - a name who I'm sure few rival fans remember but who many Bama fans recall with endless affection. In his senior year, Bearden tore the ACL in his kicking leg on a fake punt. Instead of ending his season, however, he put a brace on it and kept kicking. The process was very painful for him. Every time he'd punt the football he would limp back to the sideline and have his knee popped back into place by the waiting trainers. Despite the pain and agony he endured while kicking the football, this kid averaged over 40 yards a punt without an ACL.

Now I don't know what's going on with our special teams and most of us overlook the dumpster fire that is our kicking game due to our ability to move up and down the field, but there will come a day where we need our kicking game to bail us out of a jam. And I'm not sure they will be able to, especially when our punter kicks the ball like a middle schooler.

This post was edited on 10/14/18 at 6:55 pm