Robinson says ball security is top priority, starters available for unit
Special teams coach Joe Robinson isn’t sure what was going through his mind when seemingly everything went wrong for his unit at Florida, but it probably wasn’t good.
“Is that what Hell is like? I’m not sure,” Robinson said. “We’ve just got to play the next snap. If we stand on the sideline and think, ‘Boy, this is really something and everything’s going wrong,’ then that’s probably not very good. All we can do is try to play the next snap and try to do better.”
After the worst special teams performance of the season by the Gamecocks, USC isn’t hitting the panic button just yet.
Three fumbles, an average of 39.6 yards per punt and a blocked field goal were the highlights of the USC special teams play at Florida.
“Every week we’ve got things we need to fix — some of them this week were just a little bit more obvious to everybody,” Robinson said.
The fumbles were the most costly of the blunders. Wide receiver Bruce Ellington fumbled on the second kickoff of the game, but recovered it. Ace Sanders was the next offender, fumbling on a punt return and returning possession to the Gators at the Gamecocks’ 29-yard-line. The drive resulted in a touchdown.
On the ensuing kickoff, wide receiver Damiere Byrd fumbled, a mistake allowing Florida to start its drive at the USC 1-yard-line. UF scored again a minute later to take a 21-3 lead before the half.
Byrd had only returned one kickoff on the season, but Robinson said Ellington was not pulled in favor of Byrd because of his fumble earlier in the game. Having Byrd in was just part of the rotation, Robinson said.
For Robinson, ball security is the priority, but he said there were times throughout the year when players had big returns and the ball was loose.
“That’s our fault for not getting that corrected and getting the ball tighter,” Robinson said. “There are fundamentals of ball security that we teach and they were not followed.”
“It wasn’t one of those where they barely knocked it out, I mean, that ball went flying when their kids hit our three receivers that fumbled on our returns,” said USC coach Steve Spurrier. “Hopefully we can learn from that. We’re not going to fire all our return guys, they’ve been pretty decent all year.”
Kick returns have not plagued the Gamecocks all season, as Sanders has been one of the strongest punt returners in the SEC this season, averaging 15.7 yards a return, however, kick coverage has been an issue.
Preparing to face Tennessee wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson, who’s averaging 34.8 yards per return, the Gamecocks will try to keep the ball out of his hands on Saturday.
“It looks like only a fool would kick it to that dude, and you may be looking at a fool,” Robinson said. “It certainly would be insane to just hand the ball to that guy over and over. He’s been very good this year.”
Though Spurrier was “obviously a little irritated” with the special teams after the game, he said he was “over that” in his press conference on Tuesday. He had considered using starters on special teams, but for the time being, he said USC isn’t making any extreme changes.
“We’ve tried to shuffle a couple of faces around, but we’re using most of the people available on the team,” Robinson said. “Most of the guys that are starters are playing on some special teams. I think what Coach is referring to is maybe moving them over to a coverage unit, and we’ll take a look at that the rest of the week. Everybody’s been on deck all season long.”