The Texas Tech football team has had an excellent season on special teams and Wednesday, special teams coordinator Adam Scheier was nominated for a prestigious national award.
One of the biggest areas of improvement this year for the Texas Tech football team has come on special teams. After a disastrous 2017 in the kicking game, the Red Raiders have been the beneficiaries of tremendous play in the third phase of the game so far in 2018.
On Wednesday, Texas Tech special teams coordinator Adam Scheier was recognized for this work as one of 53 assistant coaches nominated for the Broyles Award, named after long-time Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles,
"According to the Broyles Award website, “The Broyles Award was established in 1996 by Frank Broyles and David Bazzel to recognize some of the most dedicated, hardest-working people in America – college football assistant coaches.”"
This year, 53 assistant coaches were nominated out of the 1,500 assistants at the 130 FBS programs. Nominees are selected by a panel including members of the Football Writers Association of America, the College Football Hall of Fame selection committee and current head coaches.
Scheier’s inclusion on this list is well-deserved. The overall play of the Red Raider special teams have been vastly improved in 2018.
In fact, Texas Tech is the only school in the Big 12 to have both its kicker nominated for the Lou Groza award and its punter nominated for the Ray Guy award.
Senior place kicker Clayton Hatfield ranks 3rd in the nation in field goal percentage with a 92.3% success rate (12/13 overall). Additionally, Tech ranks 50th in the nation in touchback percentage on kickoffs at 55.5%
Meanwhile, senior punter Dominic Panazzolo is also having a stellar season. The rugby-style punter ranks 44th in the nation with an average of 42.5 yards per punt.
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But his greatest weapon is not necessarily in how far he can kick the ball but in how well he can get the ball to stop. Of his 45 punts, 18 have been downed inside the 20-yard line with only three kicks resulting in touchbacks.
What’s more, Texas Tech ranks 23rd overall in the nation by allowing just 0.4 yards per punt return and 2.1 total punt return yards per game. That is due in large part to the fact that opponents have returned only four punts this year thanks to the effectiveness of Panazzolo’s directional kicking.
And on more than one occasion, special teams play has been critical for the Red Raiders this season. Against TCU, Panazzolo downed six punts inside the 20 including a critical 4th quarter punt that was downed at the one-yard line.
Tech would force TCU to punt from its own end zone setting up the Red Raider offense at the TCU 38-yard line. On the next play, QB Jett Duffey would break off a game-winning 38-yard touchdown run that was set up thanks to the work of the special teams as Panazzolo would earn Big 12 special teams player of the week.
Against Iowa State, Panazzolo downed another punt inside the five-yard-line in the first quarter. Texas Tech safety Thomas Leggett would then block the ensuing ISU punt recovering the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. It was Texas Tech’s first punt block for a touchdown since 2005.
Scheier is in his first season at Texas Tech. He spent 2017 at Ohio State in a special teams quality control position before coming to Lubbock.
During his 18 seasons as a special teams coordinator at the collegiate level, Scheier has had stops at Princeton, Lehigh, Bowling Green and Wake Forrest in addition to Ohio State and Texas Tech. This year, he was the final addition to Kliff Kingsbury’s coaching staff and based on what we have seen in 2018, it looks like he has been one of the best hires of the Kingsbury era.