Why Does Alabama Not Have a Great Punt-K.O. Coverage Team?

Larry Burton (Panama City Beach, Fla.) Yes you can be the best team in the nation and still have things to pick apart.For Alabama, the questions coaches say they're asked as much as anything is, "Why doesn't Alabama cover punts and kickoffs better?"

And while I won't give you the politically correct answers the coaches give, the reasons are many. 

The first and best answer I could give you is youth. Nick Saban likes to give the young guns, who might otherwise be collecting dust on the bench, the chance to show what they can do on special teams.

The return coverage teams are full of young linebackers and defensive backs ready to make a name for themselves with a big hit.

And therein lies the problem, for the most part. With youth comes mistakes.

On the coverage teams, the gunners are the men who go straight for the ball carrier, while the other members are supposed to hold their lanes or their plot of the playing field should the gunners miss.

Properly executed, this means that there will be less big gaps for a returner to head to and through.

But often, in the excitement of the moment, they leave their lanes to zero in on the returnee. That's excusable if you do make the tackle, but inexcusable if you miss and leave your lane open, with only the kicker to try and make up for your mistake.

However Cade Foster, besides being the kicker, is also a plant your face in the dirt, old linebacker. So, having the kicker tackle you may not be something many return men will enjoy having happen.

Yes, sometimes with a game on the line, Saban and Bobby Williams (the special teams coach), may pull the youngsters for a more disciplined set of players, but most of the time, it's the young impulsive go-getters that do this job.

These are also some of the fastest men on the team running head on at one of the fastest men on the other team. If you miss, there's no time to turn around, you won't catch him from behind, and the closing rates leave little room for error.

More than one famous coach has lamented the fact that with great talent and youth, you run the gamble of there being high reward and high risk.

Such has been the case at Alabama.

The last few years were also tough because, even though Leigh Tiffin was a great kicker, he was only so-so on kickoffs. Since he couldn't kick it out of the end zone, he had to kick high and hope the gunners had time to be on the man quickly after catching it.

Only, his hang time was not that good. Though the punter did a marginally better job with hang time, it was also a problem for him sometimes.

This year with "Iron Leg" Cade Foster doing the kicking, many may be touched back, and from all indications, the punter may actually be an improvement from last year's, despite his true freshman standing.

Though the kicking game has caused problems for last two years, it did not cause the kinds of problems that cost us games.  However, doing it often enough, could lead to that.

So while Coach Williams will have his hands full with yet another set of youngster to break in, the experience they gain from this will help them be ready in a few years, while giving them a job that makes them feel like an important member of the team.