Jefe (with an E). El Guapo's sidekick in "The Three Amigos". :thumb: See the dialogue a few posts up.
Kicking from the 30 The rule change for kickoffs, moving back to the 30 yard line, could prove interesting. Should result in fewer touchbacks and more kicks being returned. I'm wondering what changes in strategy will surface as coaches try to gain advantage. Spreading the field would seem to aid a guy like Holliday. I think I like it.
Re: Kicking from the 30 Only 25% of NFL kickoffs are touchbacks due to kicking from the 30. It wil be even less in college--kicks will be returned. I suspect: 1. Hang time will be more important than distance to get a lot of guys downfield. 2. Some teams will just kick out of bounds to a good returner. 3. Others will try to kick it to a spot in the corner and converge everybody on it to reduce the field available. 4. Everybody will be putting their best players on special teams. It won't be a safe place to get playing time for young players any longer.
Re: Kicking from the 30 Absolutely. The down side is it likely increases the collision injury rate for those good players. Coaches will get second guessed on their personnel decisions for these plays. Have to think that high school kids who play soccer and have a strong leg but not much accuracy are about to become very popular. Either that or PK's may have to get more physical. SC's PK is 6'2", 225 with experience at safety and fullback.
Re: Kicking from the 30 This change could help the better SEC teams in out-of-conference games, as speed will be much more important on kick coverage. If the kick was getting down to the goal line, it was more important to get solid sideline to sideline coverage. With the kicks coming up short of that, it's imperative that the teams have at least a couple guys that can get downfield and breakdown the blocking sooner rather than later. I can't wait to watch some of the kick returns this year -- especially with Holliday. DeSean Jackson at Cal will probably break off a half dozen awesome returns. Good point by Red on using better players on special teams -- that's a trend in the NFL as well.
Re: Kicking from the 30 I'm not sure about the rule on this but I believe the receiving team gets the choice to make them re-kick with a 5 yard penalty. I heard Miles mention this in an interview, I assume he knows the rules. Edit: It's a new rule. I'm sure because of the loophole you mentioned. Rule 6-2-1 http://www.ncaa.org/library/rules/2007/2007_football_rules.pdf
