16%

[dagdaj]

16% of the time Wetjen attempted a punt or kick return, he scored a TD.

I don't have a petcentage of how often he returned it for more yards than the nationwide average, and how much more he returned it than the nationwide average....but I'm guessing it's high.

Take the ISU game out of the stats, and Wetjen was returning kicks for TDs well over 20% of the time he elected to attempt a return. One out of every 5 returnable kick went for 6.

That's well beyond significant.

 

[Hawke]

That's a staggering statistic.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

Without Wetjen's heroics, Iowa loses to MSU.
Maybe another game or two.

 

[AreWeThereYet]

Here is what I could find for college football:

Punts - Using 2020 data, 27.5% of punts returned with a TD rate of less than 1%.

Kickoffs - Using 2020 data, 32% were returned with a return rate slightly over 1%.

(Return and TD rates were given as a percentage of all kicks.)

 

[Fryowa]

He’s the best to have ever done it in the history of college football, not just better than Tim Dwight. I don’t think people realize the significance of what that kid has done here.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

I'd heard a really good point about him from Tyler Kluver to contextualize how dang good he's been too. They had some rule change of some kind years ago that made it easier for coverage teams to spread out and cover kicks too. Kaden is a shoe in for the returner of the year again. To think we went from DeJean who was pretty damn good in his own right to the guy who's became the best to have ever done it pretty much is extremely unreal.

I can't help but look at a returner like him from the opposing coaches view too. The MSU coaching staff outta be all fired just for the decision to kick to him to begin with. It's not like there isn't 2 seasons worth of tape out there. Hell even just after the 1st one Saturday where he returned it a long ways and they pushed him OBs. They shoulda at that point been like ok let's not play with fire here anymore. But they did they kicked it to him every time. As an Iowa fan I'd like to say I give kudos to them but if I'm a MSU fan I'd be like come on no way just kick it 2 rows deep into the stands. A 35 yard kick and no return is way better then a 50 yard kick returned for 40 plus yards.

 

[kicker22]

I'm by no means an expert when it comes to football, but I really want to thank MSU for making that win possible on Saturday. After the first return they very easily could have stopped kicking to and started punting out of bounds, but time after time they continued to do it and when they finally didn't it was a shanked punt that left us great field position. So for ignoring the fact that he was our entire offense the first three quarters of that game I want to thank them for their brilliance in scheming to repeatedly give him one huge return after another all day. Well played MSU and we greatly appreciated it.