Special teams play proving pivotal for Hawkeye football

When Kirk Ferentz returned to Iowa City to take Iowa’s head football coaching position in 1999, his first priority was not to establish a great offense or defense, but rather, to craft a quality special teams unit.

“Twenty-two years ago [special teams] was one of the building blocks we tried to build the program on,” Ferentz said. “We felt like it was the first area we maybe had a chance to get decent at. If you look at any of our good teams, we’ve always played well on special teams. It’s important for any football team, and certainly for us, historically. It’s an area we have to try to excel in.”

Iowa has excelled on special teams in recent years, and is doing so again halfway through this season.

The last two years, Iowa has put its special teams prowess on full display on Black Friday. In their last two matchups with Nebraska, the Hawkeyes have won in walk-off fashion on the backs of their kickers.

In 2018, senior Miguel Recinos snuck a 41-yard field goal attempt through the right upright of Kinnick Stadium’s north end zone goal post for a 31-28 win.

Last year, the Hawkeyes repeated the feat on the road. This time – with Recinos gone – it was Keith Duncan’s time to shine.

Through the rain and off wet turf, Duncan sent his 48-yard attempt right through the heart of the goal posts with just one second left for a 27-24 win, earning Hawkeye fans’ love and driving a dagger through the Cornhuskers’ hopes.

Duncan promptly blew kisses toward Nebraska’s sideline, reminding the Cornhuskers that he had just ended their hopes of bowl eligibility – making for another pleasant bus ride home from Lincoln for the Hawkeyes.

This week, Duncan will have another chance to make Black Friday tough on the Cornhuskers, but first, he’ll have to get out of the slump he’s in.

Duncan has only made two of his last five field goal attempts. His first miss of the season came against Michigan State Nov. 7 as a 37-yarder got away from him wide right. On the road in Minnesota the following Friday, Duncan couldn’t drive a 50-yard attempt through the frigid air. Last Saturday in State College, Pennsylvania, Duncan hit from 40 yards and 24 yards, but pushed one off to the right from 50 yards.

“[I’m] still trying to get used to not having fans in the stadium,” Duncan said. “[I] started off fairly well I’d say, four out of four, and then obviously kind of disappointing the last few days. Watching the Masters, I’m a big golf guy, I saw Tiger Woods hit a 10 on a par three he’s probably played hundreds of times. He’s probably hit that club that he used thousands of times, and I think he ended up finishing five-under in his last six holes. So, it basically comes down to how you respond, how you carry yourself mentally and physically, and that’s what I’m looking at.”

Duncan’s Tiger-esque 2019 season is likely indicative of his 2020 struggles being short-lived.

Last season saw the charismatic kicker become a consensus All-American, a Bakken-Anderson Big Ten Kicker of the Year Award winner, and a runner-up for the Lou Groza Award, which is given to the best kicker in college football every season.

In total, Duncan made 29 of his 34 field goal attempts in 2019. Duncan’s 29 makes led the nation and were good for Big Ten and Hawkeye records.

This season, when Duncan’s offensive production began to stall against Michigan State, Iowa’s special teams unit found other ways to score – starting with wide receiver and punt returner Charlie Jones.

Jones hung 105 punt return yards on the Spartans, including a 54-yard touchdown. Jones started running right, walling defenders up on that side of the field. Then, he cut back left with a lot of open field ahead of him. After two timely blocks between the 15 and 20-yard lines, Jones found the end zone.

“It’s something we’ve been talking about in meetings,” Jones said postgame. “[Punt returns] definitely bring a lot of energy to the sideline. It brings up everyone’s energy. So, yeah, it definitely has an impact on the game.”

Jones attributes much of his success in the return game to his overt and undying willingness to take risks.

“It’s just taking risks, I guess,” Jones said. “I think on some of them I could fair catch it, but I take a little bit of a risk and try to make something out of nothing. That might be the difference.”

Unlike Duncan, Jones has not been with the Hawkeyes very long. The junior transferred to Iowa from Buffalo after the 2018 season.

At Buffalo, Jones totaled 289 yards on 15 returns. He also contributed 395 yards and three touchdowns across 18 receptions.

“I love my teammates over there at Buffalo, I love those guys, but I wanted to play against the best of the best,” Jones said. “I knew in the Big Ten they do that every week. Then it just comes down to working hard. That’s a day-in, day-out kind of thing. I knew that if you do that every day and you just work hard, like I said before, when the opportunity comes, you just take advantage of the opportunity.”

Aside from his thirst for great competition, the Deerfield, Illinois, native credits his family, Iowa offensive line coach Tim Polasek, and wide receivers coach Kelton Copeland for bringing him to Iowa City.

Both Copeland and Polasek recruited Jones out of high school, just not to Iowa. Copeland was at Northern Illinois University and Polasek was on North Dakota State University’s coaching staff at the time. Jones admitted he thought about committing to both institutions before ultimately deciding on Buffalo.

“I wanted to go somewhere where I knew people,” Jones said. “I knew guys on the team. I knew [Iowa] was a program where you could really work your way up just with hard work. That’s really what it is, just come out every day and work hard, and when your opportunity comes, take advantage of it.”

Jones has leveraged the opportunities he’s gotten in Iowa City – even some unexpected ones produced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While most students went home in the spring when the university moved to online instruction exclusively, Jones stayed in Iowa City to bond with his teammates, master Iowa’s offense, and improve his game. Jones lived with some of his Hawkeye teammates, including quarterback Spencer Petras.

“There was nothing else to do except go out and run routes with [Petras],” Jones said. “So, we did that every day we worked out. It definitely helped build chemistry and camaraderie between us. We became closer friends and teammates.”

Jones isn’t the only newcomer that’s shined on special teams this season. Freshman punter Tory Taylor has quickly gone from a forgotten man to a household name for Hawkeye fans.

Taylor hasn’t just had one explosive game punting the football, he’s electrified fans all season.

Taylor is top 10 in the nation in net punting at 44.5 yards per punt, and he’s also displayed elite precision, pinning opponents inside their own 20-yard line 16 times, their own 10-yard line on seven occasions, and their own five-yard line three times.

Taylor’s stellar punting this season has been quite surprising, especially considering his lack of experience.

Prior to Iowa’s season-opener against Purdue, Taylor hadn’t stepped foot in an American football stadium, much less played in an American football game.

Taylor is not a typical college football player nor student. He is a 23-year-old college freshman, hailing not from the U.S., but rather, Australia.

“So, it was certainly a quality experience even without fans,” Taylor said. “I didn’t actually realize how big the stadiums were until I got here.”

“Yeah, so it was a little bit eye-opening on traveling to Purdue, right,” special teams coordinator LeVar Woods recalled. “So, we get there in West Lafayette and we’re driving on the bus there and we finally get to have a position meeting and actually having a meal with our specialists like we typically do on a Friday night, and I asked Tory, what did you think or what do you think about being here, and he says, ‘Coach, is this what it’s like everywhere in America?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘Well, I’ve only ever been to Iowa City or to West Lafayette.’

“It’s the second city he’s been in besides the airports he’s flown through to get here. So that was very eye-opening for me. I hadn’t even thought about that, so he hadn’t really been outside of Iowa City.”

Taylor’s introduction to American football came via Prokick Australia. According to the organization’s website, Prokick Australia was founded in 2007 to “help guide and transition Australian athletes to perform at the college/NFL level.”

Prior to that, Taylor had grown up playing Australian rules football.

“It was certainly different,” Taylor said. “So, back home in Australia we play Aussie rules football, and I’d kind of always been a relatively big kicker of that football. Then, a couple of my friends who said, ‘Oh look, there’s Aussie guys over in America punting. Why don’t you have a look into it? ’I kind of looked into it and I thought, ‘What have I got to lose? It’s a great opportunity.’”

“I felt good about Tory from the first time I spoke with him on the phone and FaceTime with him,” Woods said. “I certainly watched his workouts from afar, virtually, which is what everyone is doing in recruiting, they’re all doing Zoom meetings and FaceTime workouts and all that kind of stuff. So, we were ahead of the game with that in recruiting Tory.”

Woods’ recruiting trip to Australia to meet with Taylor was unlike any he had ever taken before. His flight from San Francisco, California, to Australia was 16 hours one way. Woods’ journey hit stops in Texas; Sydney, Australia; and Melbourne, Australia.

What Woods found when he met Taylor in-person was a young punter with a lot of potential.

“It was a really unique opportunity to go over there and see what they do and how they’re trained from an Australian rules standpoint,” Woods said. “Very talented young men over there. We got the right one for us in terms of his character and how he fits in with the rest of the group.”

Once Woods met with Taylor, the freshman punter knew he wanted to attend Iowa to punt for the Hawkeyes, partially because he thought punting in the Big Ten would allow him to prove to professional teams and scouts that he could kick in the sometimes-poor conditions the Midwest has to offer.

“[Woods] was great,” Taylor said. “He met me and my family, and my family loved him as well, so I think that made it easier, especially for my parents as well just having that sort of person. I mean, it’s obviously hard, especially for mom sending me all the way over here, and kind of being unsure, but that certainly made it easier.”

With weapons such as Taylor, Jones, and Duncan at Woods’ disposal, Hawkeye fans and pundits alike have begun to characterize Iowa’s special teams as being the best in the country.

But Ferentz is keeping a level head.

“I would like to see our kick return get the ball past the 25, first of all, before we start having celebrations,” Ferentz said. “That would be nice. I don’t know if we’ve made it past the 20 yet. So, we still have work to do.”

Part of Iowa’s struggles in the kickoff return game can be attributed to a one-game suspension starting kick returner and wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette served during Iowa’s matchup with Michigan State.

On the season, Smith-Marsette has only accumulated 123 kick return yards, but that doesn’t mean the Newark, New Jersey, native is incapable of producing big plays in the kick return game.

In 2019, Smith-Marsette returned two kicks for touchdowns. Against USC in the Holiday Bowl, Smith-Marsette took a kickoff that appeared to be covered up by the Trojans to the house. After hurdling a defender and running behind a couple nice blocks at his own 20-yard line, Smith-Marsette broke free for a 98-yard touchdown.

In Lincoln, Smith-Marsette simply outran Nebraska’s kick coverage for 96-yards and a touchdown. With all of the Cornhuskers’ kick coverage out right, Smith-Marsette broke left at his own 15-yard line, and from there, nothing but green grass was ahead of him.

Smith-Marsette’s ability to make big plays coupled with Duncan’s resume and the success Jones and Taylor have already had this season makes for a recipe for success on special teams, and the statistics prove it.

Per the NCAA, Iowa ranks seventh in the nation in net punting, first in punt return defense, 12th in punt return offense, and 13th in kick return defense.

Friday’s matchup against Nebraska is another opportunity for Iowa’s special teams unit to dominate against the Cornhuskers. Special teams may be seen as the third facet of the game, but the Hawkeyes don’t treat it like that.

And that plays into their success.

“I know we take pride in our special teams here,” Duncan said. “Coach Ferentz speaks very highly of how we work and how we do things here as a unit, and that comes down to him. He takes a very big portion of practice to work on it.”