I find the placekicking situation a bit alarming. I know Yaz had a good first season, but he's been a below average kicker since.
On top of that, the penalties obviously, but the one hold on our last drive nearly cost us bigtime and was way behind the play, as was one of the punt return holds.
His first year Yaz was 11-11 under 40. Since then (and including this year) he is
14-18 under 40, for 78%. By comparison some other Ohio Kickers were:
Way: 11-13 85%
Lasher: 13-16 81%
Weller: 52-65 80%
Braunstein: 12-15 80%
Rossman: 6-13 46%
Matt Green: 4-9 44%
So, yes, since then Yaz is a shade under the other good kickers, but only a shade. If he makes a couple more kicks he'll be right back up there. If you include his first year, Yaz is at 86%, so for his career he's still the most accruate Ohio kicker under Solich from under 40 yards.
Yaz's problem is the over 40 yard kicks, and that's where you've seen the slippage. By year, from over 40 yards he has been:
2013 3-4
2014 4-10
2015 0-1
For his career, then, he's 47% from over 40, but only 36% the last two years. Here's the over 40 records for the various kickers:
Braunstein 8-9 89%
Weller 28-43 65%
Yaz 7-15 47% (36% last two years)
Way 2-6 33%
Rossman 2-6 33%
Lasher 0-2 0%
Note that there were a lot less attempts for Way, Rossman, and Lasher from over 40 than there were for Braunstein or weller. When the coaches are confident in getting points from over 40 they will try the kicks. When they are not, they are much less apt to try the kick, and will try them only if they are in the waning moments of the half, or for the win a the end of a game.
Weller averaged nearly 11 attempts/year from over 40. Braunstien tried 9 times in his one year. After going 3-4 his first year, Yaz got 10 tries from that range last year. My suspicion is that unless something changes we'll see less kicks attempted this year from over 40 than last year, and we'll see the team going for it on 4th down more often when they are at about the 25-35 yard line.
Last Edited: 9/13/2015 1:57:18 PM by L.C.