After a brutal performance in the Spring Game, the Ohio State football team should be concerned with their special teams.
The Ohio State football team usually has pretty good special teams. That goes back to Urban Meyer, who made it a point to spend a lot of time personally with mutliple special teams units. Field goal kicking and punting can help you win games.
After the Spring Game, Ryan Day has to be concerned with both of those areas. Jake Siebert missed both kicks that he attempted, neither of which were long. He is taking over the kicking duties after Blake Haubiel has moved on to the next level.
Siebert did kick late last year when Haubeil got hurt. In three games, he only attempted two field goals. He only went 1/2 on them though. He did make all 16 extra points that he attempted, which is a good sign. Even so, he did not look good on Saturday afternoon.
The punting wasn’t much better. The Buckeyes also have a new punter with Drue Chrisman moving on to the NFL. Jesse Mirco, a freshman out of Australia, now takes over those duties. He wasn’t very strong during the Spring Game either. He struggled punting the ball deep.
Mirco did have one punt late in the game that dropped and stopped inside the 10-yard line. That was by far the best effort. Many of his punts were barely past 40 yards. In fact, there was one that was only about a 30-yard effort. That can’t happen when the Fall rolls around.
These are issues that the Buckeyes have time to fix. It’s just Spring right now and that was the first time these guys have played in a game in a while. Ryan Day will make sure that both the field goal kicking and the punting will get fixed before the Minnesota game rolls around.