Kenny Perry emphasizes aggressive mindset for special teams
The special teams showed plenty of promise on Saturday. Still, penalties and little mistakes were the main factors prohibiting the performance that special teams coordinator Kenny Perry expected from his group.
However, the Week 1 results made Perry happy, and he is excited for his team to keep growing and getting better as the season continues. With both veterans and newcomers making moves on special teams, Perry has confidence in all of his guys that he puts on the field. He spoke to the media on Tuesday about his thoughts on their performance against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, different mistakes and scenarios, and more.
The kicking group
Stone Harrington and Upton Bellenfant are the two leading kickers for the Red Raiders, with both being praised highly by Perry and head coach Joey McGuire throughout the offseason. Both kickers were used against UAPB, and this approach will continue for the time being. Harrington and Bellenfant both had positives, but still have things to work on.
“The biggest thing you worry about game one is operation… our kickers, wanted to give them all a chance. Unfortunate miss of an extra point, don’t like that, that’s never happened before. We’ve got to do better in that aspect,” Perry said. “For the first game, kickoff wise was good… Stone’s probably going to lead the nation in touchbacks, which is good, but there’s going to be games where we have to play the play return. So just getting used to it.”
Kickoff/Punt Returners
On the depth chart for UAPB and Kent State on Saturday, Roy Alexander has been listed as the starting punt returner, and Micah Hudson as the starting kickoff returner. Both players got the opportunity to make some returns, as well as freshman Tristian Gentry.
“He’s (Gentry) going to be a dude and I’ve said that from the get go. I like him being aggressive. The one punt he caught, he probably should have fair caught, but I really don’t care that he didn’t,” Perry said. “For us to be good, we’re going to have to get used to doing it. So we’re going to take some hits and have some losses early. But I think the more that he does that and Roy, we’re going to be better. So I want those guys taking chances. I mean, if you’re going to be a good punt returner you’ve got to take chances. So we’re trying to get him to just be comfortable.”
All three will continue to be part of the special teams group, as well as include even more players around the team to maintain depth.
“I do want to get Coy (Eakin) because Coy’s pretty good too,” Perry said. “So really just kind of firing those young guys up, getting them going. Roy’s not really young, but, you know, I want to get him some reps, because he just hasn’t done a whole bunch. And same with Tristian, you know, it’s different doing high school and college.”
Aggressive mindset for Perry
Being aggressive is crucial for Perry and how he wants to execute his game plans each week to achieve success. When they are assertive, good things can happen and can lead to several positives after another, and those will be crucial once conference play comes around.
“It really starts from Joey (McGuire). He wants to be an aggressive special team and that’s my nature,” Perry said. “We’ve got different formations, and it depends on, you know, who we’re playing, kind of, what do they do in special teams and what does that coach do… from the aggressive standpoint, you know, I think it fits Texas Tech, you know, we want to score, we want to we want to get the ball back. We do really need to create more turnovers. That’s one thing I think we’re trying to focus on in practice, is getting more turnovers during the game.”
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