Golden Nuggets: You Won't Have Pete Alamar to Kick Around Anymore

While it’s abundantly clear that this team’s problems are more than just Alamar’s problems, you have to recognize the impact poor kickoff coverage has had on this team. When the opposing team generally starts on its 40 yard line, it negatively affect’s Gregory’s unit, as it suddenly has a much shorter field to work with. Nevermind the times we’d have to play defense starting on our own 30.

When players like Bryan Anger and Vince D’Amato all have to resort to visiting their high school coaches to improve their technique, it indicates that something is lacking in special teams coaching. When special teams play is so bad that it actually costs us a win (Oregon St 2008, UCLA 2005), it is clear something is really wrong with special teams.

For years Alamar has had the great fortune of having some fantastic athletes (Anger, Best, Jackson, and Schneider) which overshadowed a typically sub-standard unit.

Firing Alamar won’t solve all this team’s problems, but it’s a good start to improve a portion of this team that has been underachieving for years.

This is like blaming an engine for not having enough horsepower to run a car with four flat tires.

I think the issue here was not the kicking game, nor the return game itself, but kickoff and punt coverage, which has consistently been pretty bad under Alamar.

Obviously firing Alamar won’t fix the team and lead to an unbeaten season and a BCS championship.

But then again, it won’t hurt.

While Alamar bears no responsibility for any failings on offense or defense, that isn’t to say that the special teams performed well. They didn’t. And it seems to me that pulling the trigger on Ludwig might be a bit premature since it’s his first season here, and both he and Marshall probably need to gradually implement their personality and style to the team. Gregory is likely living on borrowed time, though his defenses have performed well at times, and last year, giving him (possibly) one more chance.

However, I think Alamar has had more than a fair chance at establishing himself and a strong unit. He just didn’t get it done.

Alamar wasn’t fired because of the season the team had. He was fired for having a poor special teams unit for which he was the coordinator. And it wasn’t just this season. We had poor kickoffs and kickoff coverage in 2008, too. We were 8th in the Pac-10 in kickoff coverage last year and we were 9th this year (only WSU was worse), with a net average of 37.7 yards on kickoffs – meaning our opposition on AVERAGE started at its own 33 yard line. As Charles Barkley would say, “That’s turrible.” And it just seemed like we had a tendency to give up a big kickoff return right after we seized some momentum (see, e.g., Poinsettia Bowl after taking 14-0 lead and Owusu return in Big Game after taking lead for first time in game).

We’ve also been in the bottom half of the conference on kickoff returns each of the last 2 seasons. To be fair, our punt return game and net punting have been fairly good statistically. But we’ve also had our share of ALAMAAAAAAR! moments in those areas, too.

I don’t view the Alamar firing as scapegoating him for the season. Our special teams are not good on the whole, pure and simple. I appreciate that many Cal fans have a poor opinion of Gregory and would like to see a change there. And I also can respect (if not agree) with the criticisms of Ludwig’s play calling. But to call the firing of Alamar as “scapegoat” move ignores the clearly substandard performance of our special teams over the last several seasons.

good points.