Brian Mason Notebook | October 25th
Notre Dame special teams coordinator Brian Mason spoke following Tuesday's practice as the Fighting Irish prepare for No. 16 Syracuse.
On forming a plan to block punts:
"Early in the year, there was some summer scouting involved. At this point this season, it's for the most part, a week-to-week kind of thing. My assistant, Jesse Schmidt, will do some of the advanced stuff and kind of put together a plan and then we'll kind of go through it from there. That's something we usually do Sunday night and Monday, just trying to find a matchup, an indicator or a check.
“Is there something that we can get an advantageous either matchup or get into a specific type of look that can potentially get us there? We don't always know if we'll be able to get into that. Some weeks are easier than others."
On practicing punt block for about five minutes a week + walkthroughs given practice time:
"Yeah, it's not a ton of time. So usually, I try to get with the guys, individually or in small groups tonight (Tuesday) and tomorrow (Wednesday), and try to introduce, 'Here's what we're doing.' We usually keep some form of base rules from week to week. But we're going to make adjustments on where guys line up, what the responsibilities are.
“Hopefully, people don't get a great feel for some of the things we're doing personnel-wise. Obviously, they're gonna know Isaiah Foskey's gonna rush. But hopefully some of those other things, there's some ambiguity with what we're doing. It takes extra work outside of practice time, we don't have a ton of practice time for special teams. So we have a five-minute period where we're really running through it and doing the different, techniques and things. And we then we have two days of walkthroughs. Most of it though, there's nothing we can really do to simulate a true game punt block rep.”
On how many punt block schemes he carries in a week:
"Usually, we want to give a variety of different looks. We'll come into the game usually with ... not getting too much down a rabbit hole. But basically, we have base alignment rules. We try to keep a lot of those alignment rules this week the same.
“There's three different calls. There's a super aggressive call, there's an aggressive call, there's more of a return call. Those can change as we go through the game. And then we try to get a couple of the smarter guys that we think can provide some changeups and adjustments within the game to move those pieces around."
On how quickly he knows the block is on:
"We'll go into a game and say OK, if we can get this, or we can talk them into doing this, we feel like we have a really good chance. You don't know until till it finishes, you know? I thought we had one in the BYU game, we were completely cut free and we got what we wanted and we didn't make the play. So it's not always that easy just to make it."
On manipulating the punt protection:
"We're always trying to manipulate something. Usually you're gonna try to win a one-on-one matchup. And then you're just trying to figure out how easy of a one-on-one matchup are we gonna to get. The UNLV one-on-one matchup was the long snapper versus Foskey and the long snapper had no idea where he was. That was more advantageous than other weeks."
On if he's had a guy like Isaiah Foskey on special teams and if he took over Bo Bauer's spot:
"PK (Kollie) is really in Bo's spot now. We try to use a defensive end for two and I did that in the past as well. You're just really trying to get them closer to where you think the block spot's gonna be and/or try to get them in a really good matchup. It's obviously not going to be easy for somebody on the punt team to try to block Isaiah Foskey. If we can get a matchup specifically like on the long snapper against UNLV, it's not going to be a great matchup. So we're just looking for matchups really."
On if former Cincinnati DE Myjai Sanders had a similar role as Foskey:
"He started off doing some of that. The guy that did it really well for us was a guy named Ethan Tuckey and he blocked like five or six at Cincinnati? He was a vyper type of guy for Cincinnati."
On FB/TE Davis Sherwood being a valuable piece on special teams:
He has a defensive background too, but he's just smart and he's physical. Those are obviously two really key things that we're excited and looking for."
On Vyper Joshua Burnham filling in last week:
"When Kiser got banged up, Burnham went in for him, yeah. So Burnham's played two games. Both times Kiser got banged up and he was kind of the next guy to go in for him."
On touchback success for Zac Yoakam:
"A solid touchback rate usually for most people is 60%. Right now, we're, I think 18th in the country at return rate, which means Zac's doing a great job. They're getting them to call fair catches based on them not wanting to mess with our coverage unit, or we're getting a lot more touchbacks than we would have anticipated. So it'd be top 20 of the country with our backup kickoff specialist has been very good. And we just got to keep that rolling."
On UNLV having to get the punt off quicker leading to Brandon Joseph getting better returns:
"Eventually, hopefully, they're telling the punter you got to get rid of it faster. And when they get rid of it faster, we're going to naturally not be able to get there and get more return yards. It's kind of the relationship of that. If the punter takes his time we should apply a lot of pressure. If the punter gets rid of it really fast. OK, and we're not going to get there. We should get return yards."
On Deion Colzie being able to recover the onside kick:
"Yeah, I'm glad that he got it. That's one of those tough situations. There's eight minutes to go. Are they going to do an onside kick? Are they not? Should you have the hands team out there? Should you not? The guys adjusted well, I'm glad he was able to recover."
On how much time Notre Dame works on the hands team for onside kicks:
"Specific hands team is Fridays. We do different situations with a kickoff return team on Wednesdays and Fridays."
On how many points he feels the punt block has affected:
"I think there's been several in each game. We do (chart that). I don't have off the top of my head. There was one that we were close and that we should have had a big return on, but we called for a fair catch which wasn't ideal at Ohio State. The first one against North Carolina, he shanked off the side of his foot we were close to getting. The BYU one we should have gotten. I think there was about three in the Marshall game that were close to getting. So I don't know, those come off the top of my head, though."
On what LB Prince Kollie does well on special teams:
"We're just looking for some linebackers that have just some natural football awareness and ability that know how to adjust and adapt to a lot of different situations. Usually, it's somebody that is a good player, but maybe not playing a ton of plays on defense, so they can give you a little bit more of their time and effort into special teams."
On being able to use starters on special teams:
"Yeah. We're fortunate. Coach Freeman allows us to use a good number of them. Usually I look at the defensive reps, offensive reps, guys that really increased a lot of reps and we kind of, 'Hey, they're gonna be on one thing.' JD Bertrand gets a ton of reps, he's just gonna be on the punt team.
Under Armour Navy Notre Dame Fighting Irish HOVR Sonic 5 Running Shoes
