Some Florida State fans may need to step away from the ledge when it comes to special teams. That’s the nicest way to put it and there’s really no other way to get the message across more clearly.
It’s only three games into the season and Florida State fans are ready to push the panic button on the special teams. Three fumbles on punts, All-American Roberto Aguayo missing a field goal, and a couple of sub-par performances from starting punter Cason Beatty have provoked many to openly question the coaching decisions. Not just by the special teams coordinator either — some fans have questioned what head coach Jimbo Fisher has chosen for his units.
So are the fans right this time? Are the problems piling up so much that it threatens the success of FSU’s season? Has Fisher slacked in recruiting the replacements?
As one might deduce from the first sentence…no, not really. There are some concerns that absolutely need to be dealt with before Florida State hits the main ACC stretch of its schedule, but overall, the special teams situation is still decent. So what does one make of the recent mishaps and events?
Roberto Aguayo’s missed field goal is the easiest to explain: Even Sebastian Janikowski missed a few field goals in his time. Aguayo’s first season is still the baseline that people judge him on, which is really hard to live up to when you win a Lou Groza Award and hit over 95 percent of your kicks. For 2013 and 2014, he missed his first field goal of the season in the seventh and eighth games respectively. The early miss up in Chestnut Hill is just a bit sooner than fans have become accustomed to. It also wasn’t like he completely clunked it. The ball went straight over the post and started after a less-than-ideal hold. There’s no issue here.
If there’s one aspect where the skeptics might have some legitimate concerns, it’s the punt return unit. The opener versus Texas State was awful, with punts fumbled by Marquez White and Travis Rudolph before Jesus Wilson came in to save the day. Wilson became the starter and hasn’t looked back since. He is seemingly the only one who can consistently hold on to the ball whenever it comes his way (an odd turnaround for a receiver once widely known for bad drops).
But as everyone saw during the BC game, he’s not elite with the returns by any means. Florida State has a net yardage of +54 on punt returns through the first three games, although that doesn’t accurately capture much of anything. The Boston College game had a particularly bad -7 net yards that only exacerbated the offensive struggles for FSU in that contest.
At this point, the best one could hope for is that Jesus Wilson’s one fumble last Saturday was an outlier that won’t be repeated. The Seminoles don’t necessarily need an explosive return every single game from Wilson, but getting a little bit of help would be nice. There were some positive signs during the South Florida game that he was indeed the long-term option at the position. Hopefully, he can return to form after a bad week up north.
The final issue we must approach is by far the most inflammatory topic within the fan base. The man people love to hate, Cason Beatty, had a fantastic game against Boston College. This is undeniable. It was the first game in his career where he had multiple punts and an average above 50 yards-per-punt — seven attempts for 52.3 to be exact.
Beatty’s explosive day caught everyone off guard, especially after he had two mediocre (if not bad) games against Texas State and USF. The cause of so much ire amongst the Florida State fans had turned into one of the teams most valuable players right when he needed to. Could Beatty have finally turned the corner four years after he arrived on campus?
We won’t know the full answer for a while. But this isn’t exactly unheard of for Beatty to get everybody’s hopes up and ultimately have no long term improvement in his game. There was a patch in the 2014 season starting at Syracuse where it looked like he had become more than serviceable — a weapon, in fact.
In the 6-game stretch from Syracuse to Boston College, Beatty averaged over 45 yards a punt and had longs of 48, 54, 54, 67, 52, and 54. Granted, these long punts did help increase his average a fair amount, but he was still punting at a better clip than usual. It’s hard to know if this trend will stick around but given the fact that he’s been at FSU for four years and hasn’t noticeably improved, it’s not smart to bet on it.
The common call is for Fisher to put in whoever he has at second string for punter. There’s an old saying that the backup quarterback is the most popular guy on the team; this saying is pretty accurate for whoever is behind Beatty on the depth chart. A quick survey of the 2015 roster brings up a Jonathan Hernandez, who some may remember from the spring game last year.
If he hasn’t been chosen over Beatty by now, there’s little chance that anything is going to change at the position as the year goes on. People need to realize that if Fisher had a better option, he’d put him in at a moment’s notice. He isn’t holding anybody back or purposely trotting out a punter that he considers to be less talented than the other choice. The cold hard truth is this: Beatty is the best option FSU has and he needs to step his game up for the team’s sake.
Next year, the Seminoles have Logan Tyler coming in, who operates both as a kicker and a punter. If Ricky Aguayo is able to win the placekicker job (assuming his brother goes pro), it’s not hard to imagine Tyler being the punter. He averaged 44.5 yards-per-punt last year in high school and has been dubbed the most college-ready of the specialist recruits this year. Beatty is a senior this year and the position looks prime to be inherited by Tyler next year. The future seems to be in good hands once the current players depart.
Once again, it’s not time just yet to panic about any special teams gaffes or players. Our understanding will get better as the year goes on and most signs point to special teams being business as usual for Florida State.
