Today, HLS kicks off a new series of pre-season analysis: “Know Thyself, Know Thy Enemy.” In it, we will be comparing and contrasting the likely starter at selected positions with the “best” of our opponents in 2012. So, without further ado and to get your week started off on the right foot, let’s look at the punter and kicker positions.
PUNTER
The Irish: Ben Turk will probably be punting for the Irish in 2012. A 5’11” senior, Ben punted the ball 53 times last year, averaging 40.30 yards per punt, for a total of 2136 yards. He started badly against USF and Michigan, but improved as the season went on. He put in his best display in the bowl loss to the ‘Noles, when he punted seven times, averaging 40.7 yards per punt, and puting four inside the 20. Ranked 62nd overall among FBS punters, Ben is ranked 2nd on the team in the bench press, able to bang out 29 reps of 225 pounds. His performance in the Blue Gold was very solid, averaging 46 yards in three punts.
image credit www.desertnews.com
The Enemy: The best punter the Irish will face in 2012 will likely be BYU’s Riley Stephenson. Riley averaged 42.65 yards per punt and punted 47 times for a total of 1985 yards. Against Tulsa, in the Armed Forces Bowl, he punted eight times, nailing two 50+ yarders and putting seven inside the 20. Statistically, Riley had a better year than Oklahoma’s Tress Way, his closest rival among ND’s 2012 opponents.
Analysis: Punting is one of those curious parts of the game where statistics will never tell the whole story. A fumbled snap, a bad shank or a shallow drive can flop a team’s field position and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. When Ben is “on,” he’s good, but he’s not great. At least, he hasn’t shown great yet. I question, too, how long a leash he’ll be on in favor of Kyle Brindza, who’s already handling kickoffs.
KICKER
The Irish: 
Remember Nick Tausch? Lou Somogyi has called Nick the “Wally Pipp” of placekicking, and it’s an apt equation, given Tausch’s David Ruffer-forced absence from the game these last two seasons. Who knew that a walk on would go on to become a Lou Groza Award Finalist? In any event, Ruffer’s gone and Nick is going to try to recapture his 2009 form, when he hit 14 straight and went 5 for 5 against Washington, including one from 34 yards and one from 40.
The Enemy: 
Michael Hunnicutt at Oklahoma is going to be the best placekicker the Irish will see in 2012. A 6’0″ sophomore, Michael took over the starting job three games into his freshman season and went 21 for 24, a conversion rate of 87.5%. His 21 FG’s tied the Oklahoma school record and broke the Big 12 freshman record. His longest was a 53 yarder against Kansas State.
Analysis: Like the punter, the kicker is the guy you want to see run out, do his thing and get off the field. Unfortunately for the Irish, other than David Ruffer’s remarkable 2010 season, Notre Dame hasn’t had that. Nick Tausch has a decent enough leg (his long is 46) and he’s demonstrated he can carry the load, so it will be really interesting to watch him make a name for himself outside of his association with David Ruffer.
Bayou Irish
Hating Hurricanes Since 1990.
Bayou Irish is a Jersey boy and Double Domer who fell under New Orleans' spell in 1995. He's been through Katrina and fourteen years in the Coast Guard, so we cut him some slack, mostly in the form of HLS-subsidized sazeracs. But, when he's not face down on the bar and communing with the ghosts of Faulkner and Capote at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, he's our man in SEC-land, doing his best to convince everyone around him that Graduation Success Rate is a better indicator of success than the number of MNC's won in the last five years.
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Really happy for Nick getting another chance. Go get em boy!
What about Brindza? I saw him play a few games in high school. I was stunned last year that he didn’t start punting midway through the Michigan game. It doesn’t seem like you think he’ll start at placekicking either this year. Is Tausch really better?
Dazed: to be honest with you, I was a little surprised when Kelly named Tausch the starter in the spring, given his record with the team and Brindza’s leg. The Somogyi article broke the news back in April that Tausch would start going into 2012 and today’s Blue and Gold Illustrated has an article by Dan Murphy about Tausch as starter. Personally, I don’t think Tausch is “better,” if by better you mean metrics. What Tausch gives us is a proven commodity over time — he’s had his clangers, but he’s solid overall. That being said, what I said about Ben Turk is probably true about Tausch regarding the length of his leash. If Nick comes out and misses a few against Navy, reprising his 2009 performance, I don’t think we’ll see much more of him. I think we’ll see Turk punt, Brindza kickoff and Tausch placekick on September 1. What we see on September 8 will depend on what we see on September 1, given Coach Kelly’s knack to pull a starter based on an opening day/play performance.
Brindza has a big leg, but we don’t know how he’d perform in a game considering he didn’t kick a field goal last year. Obviously they are entirely different, but his 4 kickoffs out of bounds last season make me worry about his accuracy on field goals as well. Tausch might not have a huge leg, but he has proven to be reliably accurate.
I wish one the stats services tracked hang time on punts. The difference between the #10 punting team last year (UCLA w/ an average of 44.3 yards) vs. the #60 team (Florida Atlantic w/ an average of 40.3 yards) could either be very meaningful or very meaningless depending on how often the punt returner has time and space to gain back some yardage. A good example: Florida State led the nation in average punting yardage (47 yards) but was only 31st in net punting yardage (39 yards).
The Irish? 46th in net punting (which actually counts) even though they were 83rd in actual punting distance (doesn’t count so much). The reason I’d like to know hang time is to give a better idea of how much of the net # is due to the punter and how much is due to the coverage team.
Given all the recent attention Rees has gotten on his kicking game, I can’t believe he wasn’t mentioned in this article.
Don’t get mad. You know you were thinking this too.