Brooks: KO/Punt Coverage Due Especially Close Look

BOULDER - Colorado special teams coordinator Toby Neinas observed his 42nd birthday last Sunday. He celebrated it with a sigh.

Neinas knows, of course, how close his coverage teams came to turning a sunny afternoon sour for the Buffaloes. CU gave up 482 yards - 390 on kickoffs, 92 on punts - in its 41-27 season-opening win over Colorado State. Rams punt returner Joe Hansley took a punt back 74 yards for a touchdown, while kick returner Thomas Coffman supplied another momentum-altering play with an 84-yard kickoff return that set up CSU's go-ahead score late in the third quarter.

"If that game had not gone our way, there's no doubt in my mind as to what would have caused it - there's no doubt in anybody's mind," Neinas said following a Tuesday morning practice that, yes, included work on both punt and kick coverage.

He continued: "You have such enormous swings of momentum on plays like that. We're about ready to knock them out - then we give them the punt return. We're kind of getting ready to knock them out again - then we give them to kick return . . . we have to avoid that. I have to have them better than that."

That ranks among Neinas' and the Buffs' chief tasks this week as they prepare for Saturday's home opener against the University of Central Arkansas (6 p.m., Folsom Field). The Bears, members of the Southland Conference and ranked fifth in the FCS, feature freshman Jatavious Wilson as their primary return specialist.

Neinas says Wilson can match the straight-ahead speed of CSU's Hansley and Coffman, but is quicker laterally. And Wilson showed it in UCA's 58-7 opening win against Incarnate Word, returning a kickoff 93 yards for a score and adding 17 more yards on punt returns. Wilson also had 105 receiving yards, giving him 215 all-purpose yards for the night and earning him Southland Conference Special Teams Player of The Week on Monday.

To fix the Buffs' coverage woes, coach Mike MacIntyre said there have been some personnel tweaks: "We've moved some guys around in different spots we thought they'd fit better in." He also said, "I think about seven of those kids, that was their first time to ever run down on a kickoff. So that happens sometimes. We'll improve on that and bounce back from it."

Both MacIntyre and Neinas shouldered the blame for the coverage lapses. MacIntyre said Hansley - CSU's No. 25 - didn't catch him by surprise: "No. 25 for them - I knew him going in the game because we had played against them the year before. I thought he was really quick and athletic."

On his 74-yard TD return, said MacIntyre, "We had him right there at the point of attack, two people right there, and they both missed him. Then we had another guy and another guy miss him. So, he's on scholarship and he made a good play. Do we need to not let that happen? Of course . . . we've got to improve that."

Of Coffman's 84-yard kickoff return that set up a 16-yard, three-play scoring drive, MacIntyre said, ". . . my fault. We just didn't do a good enough job. We practiced it a lot, worked at it tremendously. We just didn't do a good enough job of getting off blocks or understanding our leverage on kickoff. You get so spread out. On both of those kickoff returns (Tyree Simmons had another for 30 yards) we're down inside the 20 before the kid gets out of the end zone - which is good. You're running down there. Then they made some good blocks and he made a couple of guys miss and we kind of went in on some bad angles."

Neinas, however, said CSU made early adjustments in its return games and he didn't match those fixes: "I didn't do a good job helping them understand exactly what their assignment was. We got in the game and saw something we had not prepared for, I didn't adjust well and they (Buffs) had a hard time with what they saw."

Aside from the personnel "tweaks" - or adjustments in lining up - MacIntyre mentioned, Neinas wants to refine the coverage schemes instead of starting over. He said coverage assignments would be "really boiled down and made cleaner, simpler - just one task. If (opponents) do this, you do this - and that's it.

In Tuesday's practice, 15 minutes of a 20-minute period were spent on coverage. Neinas said if more work on coverage was required on Wednesday, so be it. "But we will get that absolutely fixed. I think we'll be so much better this weekend; if we aren't you'll see wholesale changes in schemes. But I don't think we need to do that; we're not ready for that yet."

Neinas said the message CU's coverage teams sent in the opener was straightforward: We're a work in progress and we're vulnerable.

"We cannot do that in major college football," he said. "We can't have what we saw (Sunday). Give credit to the Rams. (Coach Jim McElwain) identified what we were doing early, went right to it and adjusted very well. We thought we had it in practice, we thought we had it in drill work - and obviously I didn't have it. Because we were bad, we were bad.

"And the terrible part about that is, when you start that way in the first game, people see that. Once that's out there, it's a bad sign. We have to illustrate that we're sound in coverage on Saturday night. We have to do that, absolutely have to."

NOTABLE: How long did MacIntyre and his staff celebrate their debut win at CU? Not very . . . maybe on the bus ride from Denver to Boulder. He said he and his coaches were in their offices at the Dal Ward Athletic Center until 5:45 a.m. on Monday getting an early preview of Central Arkansas. Said MacIntyre: "You watch them on tape and you forget about everything else." That's known as "staying grounded," he added . . . . Junior receiver Tyler McCulloch wore a protective boot on Tuesday as a precautionary measure. He's taking it easy after a foot injury suffered in preseason camp but is expected to be ready for Saturday . . . . CU quarterback Connor Wood wasn't sacked once - he's not counting the statistical sack given on an intentional grounding call - and not hit very often. Wood said his O-line was terrific, MacIntyre said the big guys were passable for a first game: "They never look as good on tape (but) I'm not taking anything from way they played . . . . the eye in the sky doesn't lie." . . . . CU's run game accounted for 113 yards in the opener, not the total MacIntyre was hoping for but a justifiable amount considering Wood and his offense finished with 513 total. CSU, said MacIntyre, "was stacking up against the run, which enabled us to throw. You take what the defense gives you." . . . . CU's leading rusher was Christian Powell (13 carries, 42 yards). He came out of the game briefly with a thigh bruise, but returned. Tony Jones carried 13 times for 27 yards against the Rams. MacIntyre said Donta Abron (two carries, five yards) would likely get a few more attempts this week . . . . Outside linebacker/senior captain Paul Vigo saw limited duty Sunday because of what MacIntyre described as "a stinger" suffered near the end of preseason camp. MacIntyre said while Vigo had been cleared to play in the opener, it wasn't certain how much repeated hitting Vigo's shoulder would take . . . . Freshman receivers Devin Ross and Jeff Thomas (suspended) did not play against CSU, and MacIntyre said "depending on the flow" of the home opener both could play this weekend. Each player, he said, has practiced well and Thomas' hamstring injury appears to be improving . . . . Senior quarterback Jordan Webb is back in full gear and is practicing - a fast turnaround after his spring knee injury. However, MacIntyre said he is still unsure of Webb's playing status. He told Webb he wouldn't start or compete for the starting job and that if "everything is going smooth (at the position" he wouldn't change it. If injuries occur, MacIntyre said, so might Webb's status.