Coordinator's Corner: Special teams coach Tony Levine
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Purdue's special teams delivered a couple big plays at Wisconsin last week — blocking a punt and downing two punts inside the 10. Coordinator Tony Levine hopes it's just a sign of things to come.
He detailed the punt block, evaluated D.J. Knox's potential as a kickoff returner and talked field-goal kicker rotation, among other things, after Tuesday's practice.
GoldandBlack.com: Why did the punt block work?
Levine: "We watch all the film of our opponents from all of last season and obviously this year, and we found a pretty significant tendency, I would say, that when a team gave them a certain alignment at a certain part of the field, right before the snap, they were going to motion their left wing out. Literally, motion him out and within one second, snap the football. We ended up making a cutup, meaning a specific video edit of just every time they motioned that wing out and saw what the tendency proved to be. No one had ever really attacked that tendency. Sometimes, I like to see if I can dictate things in the kicking game that other teams will do. We put that in a week ago, Tuesday after practice, with the return team and practiced it all week.
"I have a little bit of a routine. I get to the hotel on Friday and I actually skip dinner and watch extra video. In watching the video again, probably over the 100th hour of the week watching video, I said if we move one of our guys about 18 inches closer to the ball, I think it'll actually be a better scheme. So that night in the meeting, I told the punt return team I was going to grab a couple guys after meetings were done. When all the meetings were finished and we had our team ice cream snack, I grabbed Darius Pittman, Garrett Hudson and Race Johnson. I told Darius, ‘I’ve got to move you 18 inches closer to the ball because here’s what’s going to happen if I do that.’ Then I told Garrett Hudson because he’s a ninth-year senior, it’s going to be his job to make sure Darius gets in that spot. We had a chance to call it, and we did, and they executed it brilliantly.”
Q: So that’s what you expected — for Hudson to be the one to block it?
Levine: “Oh, for sure. The guard ended up blocking Darius Pittman, which puts stress on their tackles. So when they motioned the wing out, we actually had three of our players on only their tackle and what’s now their personal protector. I knew from watching the video that any time a team rushed just an edge rusher against that look that the personal protector blocked what I call the 1 off the edge. So that left us with Race Johnson and Garrett Hudson as the 2 and 3. The tackle expanded to Race. It was as clean a block as I’ve been a part of. He got there quick.
“I think, too, just watching the last two years of film, when they’ve seen the alignment we showed them, which allowed them to then shift that wing out. I don’t want to speak for their punter, but I think the last two years, he thought maybe in that part of the field with that defensive alignment, he might have had a little more time than we gave him.”
Q: Timing the snap or isolating one guy?
Levine: “It was timing the snap as much as it was timing shift of the left wing. We watched several clips throughout the week of the left wing shifting and them snapping the ball, and when we practiced that, I want that precise. So when we do it in practice, they’re getting the exact look we’re going to get on Saturday. It’s not like in practice, we shifted the wing and our snapper waited five seconds to snap it or there was a cadence. It was shift and then the ball was snapped. They saw it all week on video. They repped it all week in practice. Really, they barely had enough time, the short amount there was between the shift and the snap to get down there. So I don’t know if some of the guys saw the ball snapped because they knew as soon as that wing went, they had to come down from a depth of four yards and come off the ball.”
Q: Was Johnson in the right spot at the right time to get the ball?
Levine: “Some people would say he was in the wrong spot at the right time. At that point when you block the punt, we had a number of guys back there. He was the one closest to the ball. He scooped and started running. We had a bunch of guys blocking for him. It’s too bad it didn’t get us seven points. I’ve seen teams before you block a punt and a guy jumps on it. We make sure our guys know the rules.”
GoldandBlack.com: What have you thought of D.J. Knox in the return game?
Levine: “D.J. has done a good job. Like we talked a few weeks ago, still trying to find personnel and someone back there who could give us some explosive plays. The things I thought I knew about him have been confirmed. Obviously, the position he plays, running back, he’s got great vision. And I love his toughness. In the return game, whether it’s punt return or kickoff return, it’s not always going to be blocked perfectly. You may have to make someone miss at times and you may have to run through an arm tackle at times. And he gives us that. He’s very coachable.
“Right now, I think this probably is a little bit new to him, being a full-time kickoff returner on special teams. But he’s embraced it, and he’s asking questions. For instance, we had a nice kickoff return last week. It didn’t score, obviously, but the blocks were there and D.J.’s track, the angle he took after he caught the kickoff, really set up four blocks. To me, on special teams one of the two hardest things to do is play on the frontline of the kickoff return, drop all the way back to the 25-yard line, turn around and block a guy who’s running full speed in space. We had three young men get those blocks perfectly. It’s a tribute to them, but it’s also a tribute to D.J. and the track he took initially when he caught the ball. So he’s done a great job. The more reps he gets, I think the more success he’ll have.”
Q: Going back to some of the creative stuff you like to do. How does somebody like Terry Wright respond when you tell him to lay down in the end zone?
Levine: “You’ve got to have a little credibility, which I hope I do, just with having coached special teams so long and having done some things outside the box. Then when you show them on film — in my meetings, I like to show them this is exactly why we’re doing this. I give them handouts of the diagram and then I put the diagram up on the screen. I go through each of the 11 guys on every return, ‘This is exactly your alignment. This is how I want you facing. This is where I want your eyes. This is where I want your drop to be, right to here. Here’s where I want your hips. Here’s where I want your hands.’ Then when I show the video clips, I say, ‘Here’s why.’ Then I go right back through it and I feel like I have, by then, a pretty good vision in my mind. So I know who’s where, who’s making the block, and I’m referencing them. ‘This is how the L3 is going to fit when we do this. This is what is going to happen.’ I like to think I’m right some of the time. But, at least in the meetings, I’m very convincing. So they do buy it at least until we get to the game on Saturday, and then we have to call it, run it and have some fun.”
Q: Will you continue to rotate kickers for field goals?
Levine: “Yes.”
Q: Why?
Levine: “I think they’re both deserving. They’re not perfect. No kicker in the country is perfect. I told them both before the season this year, ‘You’re going to miss kicks this year, and every kicker in the country is going to miss kicks. That comes with that position.’ I think when we charted them throughout the month of August, they couldn’t have been any closer. As we got into the season, I made the decision — which is something we did last year at our former program, we rotated kickers for about half the year until one really separated himself. I have great confidence in both J.D. and Spencer. It’s something for right now, we’ll continue the rotation. We’re comfortable with it. They’re competitors. And if I asked them individually, they’d both say, ‘I want to do it full time.’ But they’re great teammates. They encourage each other after each kick. They’re watching each other’s kick and when one comes off, ‘You did this well. You could have done this a little bit better.’ And they’re getting ready for the next opportunity. Until one separates himself from the other … a week ago, Spencer missed a field goal and an extra point. J.D. made both of his. Should we (change)? No. We get to this last game, Spencer was perfect and J.D. missed. Until one separates, we’ll continue the rotation.”
Q: Does distance play a role in any of this?
Levine: “It could. In my opinion, it really hasn’t yet. But, yes, it could.”
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