Michigan special teams unit working to re-energize punt game

With just over four minutes left on the clock Saturday against Michigan State, the Michigan football team needed its punting unit to come up big. 

At a pivotal moment in the game, up by just seven points and facing a fourth and long on its own 26 yard line, Michigan needed a field-flipping punt to put the Spartans’ offense on its back foot. Instead, the Wolverines got a 25-yard shank, and Michigan State took over only 1 yard from midfield. 

While a staunch defensive performance on the following drive helped Michigan eke out a victory Saturday, the struggles of the Wolverines’ punting unit have been apparent for quite some time now. In fact, in the past three games, senior Wolverines punter Tommy Doman kicked the ball 35 yards or fewer seven times out of 12 punts. And on the season, Doman ranks 98th out of 117 qualifying punters in terms of yards per kick, and 130th out of 150 in terms of net yards per kick. That’s something Michigan knows needs to change.

“We just need to get his feet underneath him, his hips underneath him and be able to get the ball out a little bit more,” Michigan special teams coordinator J.B. Brown said Wednesday. “We’ve been trying to change up practice to get some of that and change his rhythm up a little bit to do a little bit more of those things during practice. He had an extremely great day yesterday, just looking forward to what he does this week.”

Throughout his press conference Wednesday, Brown reiterated that he felt that Doman’s struggles come down to translating his play in practice to games. That theme is one that the Wolverines at large have emphasized amid a tumultuous season. But for Doman, the sample size is so small that there’s little room for error. 

Short punts like his 25-yarder against the Spartans and 28- and 29-yarders against Washington and Illinois, respectively, have stung Michigan. But Brown believes that when Doman finds a rhythm in games, his contributions can be extremely valuable to the defense. So far he’s only shown bits and pieces of that. Even last week amid his struggles, Doman’s second punt sailed 49 yards, was downed on the Spartans’ 10 yard line and contributed to a scoreless drive from Michigan State. 

As for helping Doman find a rhythm, Brown added that he’s implemented changes to practice. He has varied the types of punts Doman hits and when, what technique he focuses on each day and has added an emphasis on punt depth. Brown believes these changes will eventually pay off. 

“He’s practicing extremely well, at a high level,” Brown said of Doman. “We just need to translate it from State Street to Main Street now, and I think he’ll do that here soon.”

And while Brown reiterated his faith in Doman amid struggles, he did add that Doman and junior punter Hudson Hollenbeck have been competing in practices. It doesn’t appear that Hollenbeck will usurp Doman’s starting role in the immediate future, but Brown didn’t rule that possibility out. 

“In our room we try to make everybody compete every day,” Brown said of the competition between Doman and Hollenbeck. “That (competition) has been ongoing everyday since the start of camp, so everyday we’re trying to re-earn our spot. If Hudson punts better then yeah (he’ll be the starter).”

As the Wolverines prepare for a showdown with No. 1 Oregon’s air-raid offense this weekend, Michigan knows that special teams will be crucial. The Ducks can move the ball at a mile-a-minute pace regardless of where they start, and the Wolverines know that surrendering field position will make Oregon even harder to stop. 

So once again, the focus comes to Doman, who showed last year how big of an impact he could have on games. But right now, Michigan needs him to take it from practice to games, “from State Street to Main Street.” Otherwise, the Wolverines might not get as fortunate as they did against Michigan State.

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