Without researching it, I am going to guess our average starting field position last night was somewhere between our 20 and 25 yard line. I’m guessing Louisville’s was somewhere in the 40s. For several years now, opposing teams routinely pin us inside our 10 yard line and we rarely do the same with our punting unit. Add in a couple of blocked field goals and we are giving away a huge field position advantage. I saw that this is only the second time in Dabo’s tenure that we have rushed for over 200 yards and passed for over 200 and lost. If you have an average starting position of roughly 20 yards worse than your opponent, over 10 possessions, you would need to have 200 more total yards than your opponent to offset that difference. Nothing like starting in a hole.
We do it to ourselves though. It’s because we have been weak in all phases of special teams for a long time. Yes Potter was good during his tenure. There have been exceptions, but the exceptions have been bright spots, not the norm - low points.