With all of the Nebraska football coaching changes, one position that we want to see addressed is special teams. That has been a gripe of everybody’s for a couple of years now. As for now, head coach Scott Frost remains non-committal about hiring a full-time special-teams coach.
In his press conference on Wednesday, Frost talked about some of the coaching changes he may make as well as potential promotions. On the subject of special teams coach, he sounded very non-committal at this stage of the process.
I get it, it’s early. Frost doesn’t want to publicly bash any of the coaches that have worked with the special teams. Mike Dawson did a lot of the work with that unit this year. Kickoff coverage was better and so was punt return coverage. The improvements there were noticeable. For that, Dawson has to be commended.
There was only one time where I thought the punt return coverage was a glaring issue, and that was during the Michigan State game. the 62-yard punt return by Jayden Reid still stings quite a bit.
Punting and field goal kicking is another issue. Nebraska has missed eight-of-16 field goals on the year, a number that is way too high. Punting has been extremely hot and cold this year. Some punts can travel 50-plus yards while others fail to go more than 20. The inconsistencies on special teams have been glaring, and a new coach is definitely needed.
At his press conference on Wednesday, Frost has nothing but praise for Dawson. Again, we are not hearing what is going on behind closed doors.
Frost said he will “potentially” have a full-time special teams coach. “Mike Dawson has done a nice job of running our special teams,” Frost said. “Our special teams have vastly improved. Our specialists, we need to continue to get better in those roles, but our coverage units, when you watch the tape and where we’ve been, we’ve made some progress there.”
Hopefully we do see some change in that area. I suspect that we may see it tweaked a little bit. A change certainly needs to be made, and as we saw this week, the football program is not afraid to do so. Special teams wins and loses football games. Nebraska football fans know that all too well.
