STrib: Claeys doesn't regret benching Mortell

[Ron Johnson Super Fan]

Because Santoso's punt was 29 yards and gave Michigan the ball with 40 yards to go for the winning touchdown, which they got. Mortell was averaging around 40 yards a punt, would have at least pinned them in their own territory, assuming he got a talking to on the sidelines following his low kick and put some height on the ball to limit the return.

Mortell has had an issue with kicking returnable line drives all year long. I don't think its as simple as a coach saying "Hey Pete, let's put some air under the next punt" and him going out and doing it.

 

[Ron Johnson Super Fan]

So we are comfortable blaming an assumed 10 yards of field position for losing the game? If mortell hits a returnable punt, I don't think a 30 yard net is a given.
To me this is a bit of a non issue, especially given the glaring reasons we lost the game. this isn't one. BBC got beat for the TD and we couldn't stop the 2 pointer. 10 yards doesn't seem like an obvious reason we lost, but hey, we pick things apart here I guess.

This. The Santoso punt is not why we lost.

 

[tjgopher]

this board seems to think the PM37 of last year is still here. He is not.

Absolutely disagree with this. He's been more efficient this year. Way more punts downed inside the 20 and far fewer punts have gone into the end zone for touchbacks. He worked on that all off season and the improvement shows. It isn't about raw average, which is about a yard per punt lower. His net average is better and that's been under rated.

Bottom line, Mortell is still doing a nice job generally. He had a bad line-drive punt at CSU, at NW, and now vs. Mich. It happens. He had some liners last year, too, but didn't get burned. He isn't perfect. He wasn't perfect last year, either. Punt coverage unit was simply better last year.

No idea what the entire story on his benching is, but Mortell is again one of the most reliable, consistent contributors on this team this year.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Absolutely disagree with this. He's been more efficient this year. Way more punts downed inside the 20 and far fewer punts have gone into the end zone for touchbacks. He worked on that all off season and the improvement shows. It isn't about raw average, which is about a yard per punt lower. His net average is better and that's been under rated.

Bottom line, Mortell is still doing a nice job generally. He had a bad line-drive punt at CSU, at NW, and now vs. Mich. It happens. He had some liners last year, too, but didn't get burned. He isn't perfect. He wasn't perfect last year, either. Punt coverage unit was simply better last year.

No idea what the entire story on his benching is, but Mortell is again one of the most reliable, consistent contributors on this team this year.

Completely agree. Funny everyone seems to forget how many times he has been the difference in field position, pinning teams down.

 

[everybody knows my name]

As we all well know, every decision that works is a good one, and every decision that doesn't work is a bad one.

 

[LakerFan]

so we know everything about Santoso as a Punter after 1 attempt. Got it.

No but if your going to bench a punter for dropping below 90% performance, you don't leave in the replacement who is at 0%.

 

[Iceland12]

From Doogie on Twitter

No but if your going to bench a punter for dropping below 90% performance, you don't leave in the replacement who is at 0%.

Darren Wolfson ‏@DWolfsonKSTP 19s20 seconds ago

#Gophers special teams boss Jay Sawvel confirmed my report from Sunday that Mortell had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee bye week.

 

[killme]

There seems to be some issue that Claeys would not elaborate on, but it seems Mortell may have strayed from team philosophy on more than one occasion. If the call is punt left, the coverage team covers that way, and the punt goes right it's a big issue. If hang time is first priority to negate a dangerous returner, trying for extra yardage and hitting a liner is a gamble. If Mortell has been hurting, I hope he gets well and regains some of his finest form down the stretch. If not, Santosa may not have a great average, but with his hang time, the net will be no big, game-changing returns.

 

[Spoofin]

“Ryan [Santoso] had a solid week of punting,” Sawvel said. “One thing we got all week out of Ryan was a consistent ball with some height. Had he hit a 45-yard ball, we would have felt good about our decision. He hit the ball that he hit, and now we and everybody second-guesses it.”

 

[Spoofin]

Weird that Sawvel parted from TC's party line......

EDIT: I mean by his quote that injury played a role in the decision.

 

[highwayman]

Darren Wolfson ‏@DWolfsonKSTP 19s20 seconds ago

#Gophers special teams boss Jay Sawvel confirmed my report from Sunday that Mortell had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee bye week.

Thread now irrelevant. Shocking. Time to move on.

 

[kisarazu]

Randall Cunningham once came into a game to replace a punter and kicked the ball 42,983 yards.

I'm probably not going to read the rest of this thread, but this had me laughing the whole morning.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Weird that Sawvel parted from TC's party line......

EDIT: I mean by his quote that injury played a role in the decision.

Thought that was strange as well when I read Joe's story today. This is the second time now where Claeys has said one thing and someone else on the team has said something else. The first was the apparent lack of communication in regards to the clock running when Mitch said he didn't know it was going to run and Claeys said he did. And now Claeys had been saying the decision to go with Santoso was performance and not injury related whereas Sawvel is saying that it was injury related.

Both are minor things but it is especially strange to see the coaches not giving out the same message in regards to the way a situation was handled.

 

[gopher7]

Thought that was strange as well when I read Joe's story today. This is the second time now where Claeys has said one thing and someone else on the team has said something else. The first was the apparent lack of communication in regards to the clock running when Mitch said he didn't know it was going to run and Claeys said he did. And now Claeys had been saying the decision to go with Santoso was performance and not injury related whereas Sawvel is saying that it was injury related.

Both are minor things but it is especially strange to see the coaches not giving out the same message in regards to the way a situation was handled.

Weird to me too. For now I'll chalk it up to the chaos of inheriting a football team and playing a game three days later.