FSU football: How much did special teams improve over 2021?
By Kelvin Hunt
Metrics
If you want a glimpse of how much special teams improved from a field position standard? FSU went from No. 125 in FEI advanced rankings to No. 9.
FSU’s average starting position in 2021 was the 25 yard line and that improved to the 32-yard line in 2022.
That’s almost one first down the offense doesn’t have to worry about getting over a year ago.
- Kickoff return yards: 20.47 yards compared to 20.36 in 2021
- Kickoff return yards allowed: 20.10 yards compared to 26.43 in 2021
- Punting: 41.69 average yards to 42.72 yards in 2021
- Punting return yards: 10.32 yards compared to 4.18 yards in 2021
- Punt return yards allowed: 4.45 yards compared to 8.15 yards in 2021
- Field goals: 10 of 17 compared to 10 of 13 in 2021
The punting numbers don’t jive unless you watched FSU games this year. FSU punter Alex Mastromanno had 13 of his 32 punts (40.6 percent) fall inside the 20-yard line.
He only punted 32 times compared to 61 times in 2021, and teams only returned 11 punts against FSU all season(down from 13 in 2021).
Mycah Pittman’s addition as punt returner paid dividends immediately. He more than doubled the punt return average while making sound decisions when and when not to field punts in traffic, or to pick up punts that hit the ground to avoid losing another 20-yards in field position.
The only negative was Ryan Fitzgerald’s kicking woes, which plagued him in the first half of the season so much it affected how Mike Norvell called games offensively.
Fitzgerald showed a lot of mental toughness, finishing the season making 6 of his last 8 field goals, with one of the two misses on target but coming up a couple of yards short from 50+ yards. The other miss was from 37-yards against Florida, but he later nailed one from 46 yards to tie the game in the third quarter.