Purdue still in wait-and-see mode on new kickoff rule
Purdue coaches are still unsure how they'll instruct their kicker to handle the new kickoff rule implemented into college football starting this season.
According to a new rule approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, return teams will now have the option to fair catch a kickoff inside the 25-yard line and have the ball placed at the 25 to begin a possession.
The new rule is the latest in a series of changes of the last few years to college football by the oversight committee to slowly remove the kickoff from the game in hopes of making the game safer as a whole.
Purdue senior kicker Shane Evans, who is likely to handle kickoff duties for the upcoming season, said Thursday following the Boilermakers' seventh preseason practice that he hasn't yet been instructed by Jeff Brohm or new special teams coach Mark Tommerdahl on how to handle kickoffs.
"If Coach Brohm wants me to kick it out of the back of the end zone then that's what I'm going to try to do," Evans said. "If he wants me to squib kick it, I've been working on that, too. Either one is one I'm capable of doing."
Evans, who was third in the Big Ten last season with 35 of his 60 kickoffs going for touchbacks, said he was surprised by the new rule and expects a lot of programs to instruct a squib kick to completely avoid the fair catch.
Brohm has said repeatedly this summer that his staff will be no different than anybody else as they'll likely need a few games to see how this new rule will play out.
"Everybody in the special teams world has talked to each other about this and it's just a huge unknown," Tommerdahl said. "There's no way to answer that right now. A lot of it is going to depend on your opponent. A lot of it will depend on how your offense is doing and so it really is to be determined."
Tommerdahl arrives to Purdue with 34 years of collegiate coaching experience, including 23 as a special teams coordinator and most recently the 2017 season at Utah State as the special teams coordinator and running backs coach. Tommerdahl takes over Purdue special teams from Tony Levine, his good friend, dating back to when he was an assistant at Minnesota and Levine was a senior on the Golden Gophers football team.
If teams attempt a pop-up kick to either force a fair catch or all but eliminate a dangerous returner from getting his hands on the football, up-men might be responsible for fielding the ball. In different interviews this preseason, neither Brohm nor Tommerdahl have dismissed the question posed about 240-pound sophomore linebacker Derrick Barnes being seen fielding kickoffs.
"Actually Derrick is a very good athlete and played linebacker and running back in high school and was very productive at both," Brohm said Aug. 6. "So, I think he'll be a very good linebacker for us in the middle this year and he'll be on some special teams. If he is, we feel like if the ball is kicked his way, he'll do a good job."
Brohm has stated a major emphasis to Purdue's spring and preseason practices has been to drastically improve a kick return unit that was last in the Big Ten and fourth-worst among the 130 Football Bowl Subdivision programs in the 2017 season.
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