Max Duffy (Vicky Graff Photo)
I saw an interesting video clip from Max Duffy, UK’s All-American punter, that made me stop and think. He said that Mark Stoops had named him the special teams coordinator (because this year there isn’t one on staff) and he was excited to take on that role and add that to his resume.
Now, with the Australian accent and the deadpan expression it was difficult to tell if he was serious or just having some fun but either way it did make me stop and think.
Last year Kentucky had a special teams coordinator and some aspects of special teams, the placekicking , was a weakness of that team. One could attribute at least the loss to Florida to a special teams miscue with a very make-able missed field goal and several other games suffered from missed field goals and extra points as well. So much so that mid-season Mark Stoops switched place-kickers from Chance Poore to Mark Ruffolo.
In defense of special teams coach Dean Hood and the rest of the special teams group, they were very good in the other aspects of the game. Kickoff coverage was great — 48 of 67 kickoffs were touchbacks. Net punting by the aforementioned Max Duffy and crew was also excellent — best in the SEC while giving up only 95 return yards. Kickoff coverage was second best in the SEC.
With all that in mind and also remembering that Hood moved on to be the head coach at Murray State it made me wonder if special teams will be a strength again this season or a potential chink in the armor.
It would appear that the talent is there. Duffy is back for his final season as punter and should dominate the punt game in college football as he did last year with well placed kicks that were frequently downed inside the 10-yard line. He also demonstrated his ability to successfully run the ball on a fake punt as evidenced by his 26-yard run against Missouri that sealed a 29-7 win in a downpour against the Tigers in October last year. Duffy should be a major special teams weapon again this year.
But what about place kicking. Grant MacKinnis, UK’s kickoff specialist and backup punter, transferred to Missouri in the off-season so the Wildcats will be trying out a new kickoff specialist this fall. It appears that the job may fall to Poore, the sophomore who was the starting field goal kicker at the beginning of the 2019 season.
Midway through the season Poore was replaced by Matt Ruffolo after Poore missed what would have been a go-ahead score against Florida with less than a minute to play. He also missed two field goals in the loss to Mississippi State before giving way to Ruffolo for the rest of the season. There is no reason to think that Poore, a three-star player out of South Carolina, can’t do well as a kickoff specialist. He came into Kentucky in 2019 with a reputation for having a very strong leg as a kicker but accuracy on field goals has been a problem.
Ruffolo is also back for his senior season at the starting placekicker position. The assumption here would be that Poore would kick off and Ruffolo would handle the field goal kicking duties provided he gets the job done in fall camp.
So a lot of experienced talent returns on special teams for the Wildcats in 2020 but the real question is, who will coach them? It looks like the bulk of the special teams coaching will fall on Louie Matsakis, a current quality control coach for UK and former college placekicker and former special teams coach at Youngstown State.
Quality control analysts are usually experienced coaches that are in between jobs and can bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to a football team. The problem is they can’t coach on the field. That means if Matsakis is the de facto special teams coach he will have to work through another assistant coach or a player, such as Max Duffy, to get his points across.
I’m not sure if that is a great plan but we’ll find out this season.
If special teams are tremendous again this year Mark Stoops will be hailed as a great strategic head coach by not replacing Hood with another special teams guy but if they struggle with made field goals or kick coverage then all of a sudden the move might not look so good.
With all that being said, really what I can’t wait to see is Duffy up on the podium for the post-game press conference explaining to the media how the kick coverage wasn’t what it should have been and how he plans to get it corrected by the next game. That should be very interesting.
