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| Michael Shelton had a good game returning punts (Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo) |
Not a lot went right for the BYU Cougars yesterday against the UMass Minutemen. One of the bright spots, however, was punt returns.
Coming into the game, BYU was averaging 1.5 yards per punt return. Only two teams in the nation were worse that the Cougars. BYU had returned 14 punts in the first 11 games. None were longer than nine yards. That came against East Carolina; the nation's 115th best team at defending punt returns. In three games (Portland State, Utah, and Mississippi State), BYU had negative return yards on punt returns.
UMass' first punt of the game was a touchback, but the second punt was returnable. It came on the second play of the second quarter. Michael Shelton fielded the ball at the 13-yard line with a lot of room to run. He quickly got 10 yards to set a new standard for punt returns in 2017, but he wasn't done. When UMass finally brought him down at the 34-yard line, Shelton had picked up 21 yards. That doubled the total punt return yards the Cougars had for the entire season.
As the game wore on, Shelton showed he was capable of doing it again. With the first half winding down, UMass punted once more. This time, Shelton fielded the kick at the 20-yard line. He had a lot of green grass in front of him again, and he reached the 35-yard line for a 15-yard return.
Shelton had two more opportunities to return punts early in the fourth quarter. Neither one (six and five yards) was as good as the first two, but they were still more than three times BYU's season average coming into the game.
With under six minutes to play, BYU trailed 16-3. The Cougars were looking for plays from anybody they could get them from. Shelton delivered. UMass was punting the ball back to BYU. It was a short punt, just 36 yards, which is usually easy for teams to cover and keep the return short. Shelton, however, found a way around the corner, and weaved his way back to the middle of the field. He was finally taken down at the UMass 38-yard line after a 39-yard return.
Shelton now had five returns for 86 yards, which is an average of 17.2 yards per return. That average dropped to 14.3 for the game when he fielded the Minutemen's final punt just before going out of bounds, which gave him one more return, but zero yards.
Shelton's production has moved BYU up over 30 spots in the punt return rankings from 128 to 96. The Cougars' season average is now 5.35 yards per punt return.
With one game left, Shelton has a chance to show yesterday was not a fluke. Hawai'i may pose more of a challenge. The Warriors are ranked 77th nationally allowing 8.26 yards per punt return. Whereas, UMass is ranked 124 with an average return allowed of 13.7 yards.
FYI: BYU is ranked 11th in the nation allowing an average of 3.29 yards per punt return.
The Editor appreciates all feedback. He can be reached via email at bluecougarfootball@gmail.com
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