Coming into this season, it was no secret that Oregon’s special teams game needed great improvement. Dan Lanning brought in Joe Lorig, the special team’s coordinator for the Penn State Nittany Lions, to try and overhaul the unit and turn it into a successful bunch.
Ahead of the season when interviewed about the change that was needed, Lorig was blunt, to be completely honest. He spoke about how bad the unit was under the previous coaching staff, and profused that things would be different under his staff. Every day at practice, we saw special teams act as the No. 1 thing that the team worked on after stretching each day.
A lot of good it’s done them.
At the end of the regular season, Oregon still has one of the worst special teams units in the nation. They rank No. 116 in kick-off return defense, No. 109 in kick-off returns, No. 116 in net punting, and No. 116 in punt defense.
That ain’t great.
On Saturday, the special teams miscues can largely be blamed for the loss. We saw a blocked punt, as well as a muffed punt that gave the Beavers the ball on the 2-yard line, giving Oregon State the chance to make it a 3-point game in the fourth quarter. We also saw a 48-yard kick-off return from Oregon State that set up a scoring drive, as well as a botched kick-return from Kris Huston that gave Oregon the ball at the 10-yard line in the 4th quarter.
Did you get all of that?
Whichever way you want to look at it, the special teams unit was awful on Saturday. That may be excusable if it was a one-off instance, but it’s been awful all year. I’m not sure what needs to change, but something’s got to give this off-season.
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