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 TD 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.

 

[HawkeyeHypnosis]

I read that the punter was supposed to kick the one at the end, where Wetjen got like 40 yards, out of bounds. Punter wanted to challenge him.
Found the article:

Michigan State is headed for the wrong kind of history, and Jonathan Smith isn’t helping

From ill-advised punts to contradictory clock management, Smith's decisions helped keep the Spartans in the Big Ten basement.

www.nytimes.com

“We were going to punt to him,” Smith reiterated. “Placement matters. Obviously coverage, and even the early one, when he takes it back, we’ve got chances to get him on the ground.”

Burned twice, Smith flipped to quick punts from quarterback Alessio Milivojevic on three occasions to prevent Wetjen from taking the field. But with a 17-10 lead and under three minutes remaining, Eckley trotted out to punt on fourth-and-15. Smith said his instruction was to kick the ball out of bounds. Instead, Eckley boomed a 54-yarder near Iowa’s west sideline. Wetjen reversed his field and sprinted for 40 yards with six different defenders missing tackles before he was forced out of bounds. Eckley’s second-to-last punt of the night was an 11-yard shank.

“The last two punts did not get executed the way we wanted,” Smith said, “and that turns into a three-point loss.”

 

[Hawkfnntn]

I read that the punter was supposed to kick the one at the end, where Wetjen got like 40 yards, out of bounds. Punter wanted to challenge him.
Found the article:

Michigan State is headed for the wrong kind of history, and Jonathan Smith isn’t helping

From ill-advised punts to contradictory clock management, Smith's decisions helped keep the Spartans in the Big Ten basement.

www.nytimes.com

“We were going to punt to him,” Smith reiterated. “Placement matters. Obviously coverage, and even the early one, when he takes it back, we’ve got chances to get him on the ground.”

Burned twice, Smith flipped to quick punts from quarterback Alessio Milivojevic on three occasions to prevent Wetjen from taking the field. But with a 17-10 lead and under three minutes remaining, Eckley trotted out to punt on fourth-and-15. Smith said his instruction was to kick the ball out of bounds. Instead, Eckley boomed a 54-yarder near Iowa’s west sideline. Wetjen reversed his field and sprinted for 40 yards with six different defenders missing tackles before he was forced out of bounds. Eckley’s second-to-last punt of the night was an 11-yard shank.

“The last two punts did not get executed the way we wanted,” Smith said, “and that turns into a three-point loss.”

Imagine being a coaching staff that's likely to be getting fired with your punter and punting unit being a huge reason why.... If a coaching staff is that dumb then they made the decision to let em go just that much easier

 

[haydensly]

I read that the punter was supposed to kick the one at the end, where Wetjen got like 40 yards, out of bounds. Punter wanted to challenge him.
Found the article:

Michigan State is headed for the wrong kind of history, and Jonathan Smith isn’t helping

From ill-advised punts to contradictory clock management, Smith's decisions helped keep the Spartans in the Big Ten basement.

www.nytimes.com

“We were going to punt to him,” Smith reiterated. “Placement matters. Obviously coverage, and even the early one, when he takes it back, we’ve got chances to get him on the ground.”

Burned twice, Smith flipped to quick punts from quarterback Alessio Milivojevic on three occasions to prevent Wetjen from taking the field. But with a 17-10 lead and under three minutes remaining, Eckley trotted out to punt on fourth-and-15. Smith said his instruction was to kick the ball out of bounds. Instead, Eckley boomed a 54-yarder near Iowa’s west sideline. Wetjen reversed his field and sprinted for 40 yards with six different defenders missing tackles before he was forced out of bounds. Eckley’s second-to-last punt of the night was an 11-yard shank.

“The last two punts did not get executed the way we wanted,” Smith said, “and that turns into a three-point loss.”

I read this too. Good article. It sounded as if at least two of those returns, the punter failed to do what he was asked to do. The Special Teams coach maybe needed to work on those scenarios in the week leading up to the game. Or, maybe they did and the punter just didn't get the job done.

 

[Grady]

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.

In his postgame presser, the MSU coach said their plan going into the game was to punt to Wetjen once and see if they could contain him, and if not to punt everything after that out of bounds. Wetjen fair caught the 1st punt. The 2nd punt he caught on the 10 yd line and returned it 45 yds.

The coach said after that 2nd punt, the plan the rest of the game was to punt everything out of bounds. It was not a bad plan. But the nation's supposedly 'best punter' really f***ed up over and over again -- the coach just didn't want to call him out by name after the game and instead referred to "lack of execution". Indeed.

 

[99topdawg]

I read this too. Good article. It sounded as if at least two of those returns, the punter failed to do what he was asked to do. The Special Teams coach maybe needed to work on those scenarios in the week leading up to the game. Or, maybe they did and the punter just didn't get the job done.

I can only imagine what their call-in show sounded like.

 

[Hawke]

I read that the punter was supposed to kick the one at the end, where Wetjen got like 40 yards, out of bounds. Punter wanted to challenge him.
Found the article:

Michigan State is headed for the wrong kind of history, and Jonathan Smith isn’t helping

From ill-advised punts to contradictory clock management, Smith's decisions helped keep the Spartans in the Big Ten basement.

www.nytimes.com

“We were going to punt to him,” Smith reiterated. “Placement matters. Obviously coverage, and even the early one, when he takes it back, we’ve got chances to get him on the ground.”

Burned twice, Smith flipped to quick punts from quarterback Alessio Milivojevic on three occasions to prevent Wetjen from taking the field. But with a 17-10 lead and under three minutes remaining, Eckley trotted out to punt on fourth-and-15. Smith said his instruction was to kick the ball out of bounds. Instead, Eckley boomed a 54-yarder near Iowa’s west sideline. Wetjen reversed his field and sprinted for 40 yards with six different defenders missing tackles before he was forced out of bounds. Eckley’s second-to-last punt of the night was an 11-yard shank.

“The last two punts did not get executed the way we wanted,” Smith said, “and that turns into a three-point loss.”

“Obviously coverage, and even the early one, when he takes it back, we’ve got chances to get him on the ground.”

How did that work out for you, Einstein?

 

[kameltoez102]

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.

Agree, and it gets under my skin when the talking heads still squawk about Iowa's offensive numbers being so low but then just skim by the special team numbers. There have been many times over the past few years where Iowa's yardage may not have been great but when you factor in return yards they are either fairly even or Iowa has more. This isn't even including Punt yards or anything but just return yardage. It's like having a stud running back or receiver and just throwing out their stats because they don't touch the ball enough. There are still three phases to the game and as the saying goes Special Teams wins you games. It seems like Iowa is one of the few that consistently has success so it's just an afterthought because it's not sexy.

 

[AreWeThereYet]

I read that the punter was supposed to kick the one at the end, where Wetjen got like 40 yards, out of bounds. Punter wanted to challenge him.
Found the article:

Michigan State is headed for the wrong kind of history, and Jonathan Smith isn’t helping

From ill-advised punts to contradictory clock management, Smith's decisions helped keep the Spartans in the Big Ten basement.

www.nytimes.com

“We were going to punt to him,” Smith reiterated. “Placement matters. Obviously coverage, and even the early one, when he takes it back, we’ve got chances to get him on the ground.”

Burned twice, Smith flipped to quick punts from quarterback Alessio Milivojevic on three occasions to prevent Wetjen from taking the field. But with a 17-10 lead and under three minutes remaining, Eckley trotted out to punt on fourth-and-15. Smith said his instruction was to kick the ball out of bounds. Instead, Eckley boomed a 54-yarder near Iowa’s west sideline. Wetjen reversed his field and sprinted for 40 yards with six different defenders missing tackles before he was forced out of bounds. Eckley’s second-to-last punt of the night was an 11-yard shank.

“The last two punts did not get executed the way we wanted,” Smith said, “and that turns into a three-point loss.”

I hear that the punter is spending the remaining week of the season strapped to the bottom of the team bus.

 

[HawkeyeHypnosis]

Punter wanted to try and prove something. Not quite sure what he would have proven.