Football: Halfway through the season, time to grade the special teams

At the halfway point in the season the Pitt football team is 5-1 and 2-0 in the Big East, good enough for first place in the conference. Earlier in the week, Jay looked at how the offense has played so far this season and yesterday Adam graded the defense. Today, it’s special teams’ turn.

The special teams unit faced many questions coming into the season. Kicker Connor Lee graduated having never missed an extra point while at Pitt. Last year he set a school record by kicking 20 field goals.

Also graduating was punter Dave Brytus, who averaged a bit more than 40 yards per punt last season. He’s also a trained MMA fighter, which might be equally hard to replace, especially on the special teams unit.

So just how are the Panthers fairing without Lee and Brytus? Not too bad, actually.

Kicking
A

Other than two missed extra points against Buffalo, freshman Dan Hutchins has taken over as starting kicker quite nicely. Hutchins is second in the Big East in scoring, averaging 7.5 points a game. He’s also 7-7 on field goal attempts.

Last week against Connecticut, Hutchins hit the biggest field goal of his young career, an 18-yard chip shot as time ran out to give the Panthers the 24-21 victory. His longest field goal so far was a 42-yarder also against Connecticut.

Handling kickoffs has mostly been Luke Briggs, who is averaging 64.2 yards per kickoff. Conversely, opponents are averaging 58.8 yards per kickoff against Pitt.

Punting
A

Not only is Hutchins taking over for Lee as kicker, but he’s the starting punter for the Panthers as well. He’s punted 24 times for an average of 41.5 yards. He hasn’t had a punt, or field goal attempt, blocked, nor has he had a punt returned for a touchdown. Hutchins has also had six punts travel more than 50 yards, and 11 punts pit opponents behind their own 20-yard line.

Return Game
B

On kickoff returns, freshman speedster Cam Saddler has been great. He leads the Big East with a 31.5-yard average on returns. He has great speed to go with his elusiveness, and looks like he can return any kick for a touchdown. Unfortunately for Pitt, he injured his ankle against Louisville and didn’t play last week against Connecticut. In his place, Aundre Wright and Antuwan Reed haven’t looked nearly as impressive.
Returning punts this year has been left to Aaron Smith for the most part. He’s averaging 6.4 yards per return, which places him third in the conference. But, the Panthers have no returns for touchdowns this year.

Well, that’s it for our mid-season report card. Averaging everything together using shotty math at best, it looks like we determined the Panthers have played to about a B+ so far this season.

Do you agree with our ratings so far? Think we graded them too high, too low? Let us know by e-mailing us at sports@pittnews.com.

And as always, keep following the Pitt News throughout the rest of the season for football coverage.