We are in a new era of offensive fire power in college football. Teams have responded by changing offensive tactics and hiring new coordinators. I would argue that based on the last few seasons, teams that want to win a national championship should also adopt a massive shift in thinking around punting.
First, the obvious. 2019 LSU and 2020 Alabama represent the way teams will win championships this decade. The OSU/Clemson/Bama champions before them were on that path, but we are now at the next level, as a result of incredible talent at the WR position, new play-calling, QBs brought up on 7-on-7, etc. If you can’t score 45+ points in a playoff game, you are not going to win a championship.
On defense, clearly you have to be better than last year’s OSU team. But even if you have a solid D, the evidence is in that teams should punt less. I took a quick look at a handful of games from the last two years to check my thinking, and my conclusions were basically this:
- It’s fine to punt early in a game as teams are getting their feet under them
- Punting from deep in your own territory is fine
- Teams should basically never punt after they get past their own 40 or 45, and should strongly consider going for it on 4th and 5 or less even in bad field position
(all of this is limited really to playoff games or games against championship contender offenses, which I would argue are LSU, Bama and OSU from the last 3 years).
Games:
LSU vs Alabama 2019
LSU - 4 punts - 1 of which was returned for a TD
Other 3 times they punted:
- Bama TD on 64 yard pass (punt from Bama 47)
- Bama TD on 95 yard drive (punt from midfield)
- Bama TD (punt from midfield)
Alabama - 3 punts
- Punt from own 29 - stopped LSU
- Punt from own 28 - LSU TD drive
- Punt from midfield - stopped LSU (at midfield)
LSU vs Clemson 2019
Clemson - 9 punts
LSU - 7 punts
Game started w 4 punts in a row. Picking it up from there:
Clemson punted 7 more times and the results were:
- LSU TD in 1:30 drive
- TD in 2:00 drive
- TD in 95 yard drive
- TD in 2 minute drive
- Missed FG
- TD in 3:30 drive
- Punt after 5:30 drive to run clock down
LSU punted 5 more times and results were:
- Held for a punt
- TD on 1:30 drive
- TD on 2:30 drive
- Held for punt
- Clemson fumble
Ohio State vs Clemson 2020
OSU - 4 punts
Clemson - 5 punts
OSU punt results were:
- Held for a punt
- Held for punt
- Held on downs
- Clemson turned it over
Clemson punt results were:
- OSU TD in 1:12
- TD in 4 minute drive
- TD in 4 minute drive
- TD in 12 play drive
- TD in under a minute
Ohio State vs Alabama
OSU - 5 punts
Alabama - 2 punts
Results of OSU punts were:
- TD on 12 play drive
- Bama fumbles
- TD in 41 seconds
- Held for punt
- Game ended/clock ran out.
Bama's offense was so good that they only punted twice - near the end of both halves, when it didn't really impact the flow of the game.
At any rate, we already know from advanced stats that teams should punt less generally. But against true superpower offenses - they should try to not punt at all, because most of the times they punt, they wind up giving up a TD anyway. I bet we are going to see more of this mentality moving forward as teams look for a way to stay in the game against dominant offensive superpowers.
