Quick hitters: Notre Dame ST coach Brian Mason on South Carolina, Shane Beamer
Notre Dame special teams coordinator Brian Mason, the architect of the Fighting Irish’s nation-leading 7 blocked kicks, spoke to the media Sunday about South Carolina and the upcoming Gator Bowl. Here are the key points from his press conference.
On assessing Notre Dame and South Carolina special teams in 2022
“There are a couple different ways we try to analyze or grade our special teams. From a year-end standpoint, we look at the FEI analytics. We always want to be the No. 1 special teams unit in the country. The objective way I think to look at that is the FEI analytics which is done by Football Outsiders. It does efficiency rankings for every unit of special teams and field position, and they will combine that into giving a special teams ranking. It’s our objective to be No. 1 in the country. The last five years, we were never in the top 25 which certainly was an underachievement. This year we finished the regular season fifth in the country. We want to make improvements to be No. 1.
“South Carolina is currently No. 1. They’re really good in every single unit. It’s obviously a great challenge for us as we look, hey, we want to be No. 1. Well, we’re playing the No. 1 unit on paper in the country. They’re solid in every single unit. So that’s a great motivation for us to prepare during the bowl season. They’ve really done what we want to become.”
On South Carolina special teams coaching
“Obviously their head coach, Coach Beamer, is a great special teams coach. Pete Lembo, I’ve coached against three times. He was at Memphis when I was at Cincinnati. We coached against each other on three separate occasions. He’s been a lot of different places and has been a head coach. He’s a really, sharp veteran coach. So they’ve got two unbelievable special teams coaches on their staff.”
On ‘Beamer Ball’
“That’s really the same thing we’re trying to do. We’re trying to create some chaos in the game and be aggressive, and that’s exactly what they do. They have blocked kicks. They fake a lot of field goals and punts. They’ve had a combined eight field goal and punt fakes this year, which is unbelievable. They’re really aggressive and really solid in the same ways we would like to be, for sure. They certainly put it on film.”
On replacing Isaiah Foskey on the Notre Dame punt block unit
“We’ve played a number of different guys throughout the year. Some guys have rotated around based on injuries and different things. The two guys who have really run the show in a lot of ways are [Jack] Kiser and [Prince] Kollie. Certainly we expect those two guys to be able to run the show. Most of the guys who are going to be playing in the bowl game are guys who have played or gotten significant reps all season.”
On Jaylen Sneed’s growing confidence
“One of the things we hit on with the guys is if you’re not playing as much on offense or defense as you want, the way you can get momentum in your life and become a better football player is certainly playing on special teams. That’s definitely happened with Sneed. He was able to get out on the field and showcase some of the things he’s been able to do and get some momentum and do better on defense in practice as well.”
On his likelihood of calling fake kicks
“Would love to. If it’s there, it’s something we will always have ready. You always want to try to find an advantage and create chaos with those things. Sometimes the situation is not there. You’re not on the right hash or you’re not at the right down and distance or you’re not getting the correct look from your opponent. It really depends on those situations and things. We’ve always got something ready to go. Two years ago at Cincinnati we ran two different punt fakes in that year. Once was in the bowl game against Georgia. If the opportunity is there, we’d certainly love to be able to change the game with that.”
On Notre Dame freshman Bryce McFerson
“He’s going to be the starting punter next year. He’s done an unbelievable job as the year has gone on, especially at the end of the year. He keeps getting momentum and more consistent. He has an unbelievable leg. We expect him to be the starting punter and feel very confident with him as the starting punter. Really excited for his future and certainly him being healthy next year.”
On Notre Dame long snapper Michael Vinson coming back for a graduate season
“As things have gone on, he’s really around all the time. He’s with myself and Jesse, our special teams assistant, he helps out all the time. He’s in the office a ton. he watches a lot of film. You just can’t easily replace somebody like that, especially because we have a young group. We brought in some grad transfers because we had a young group. We lose those grad transfers and we have a young group again. Milk coming in keeps that experience and leadership that we really need. It’s going to be invaluable.”
On Notre Dame’s struggles in the kick return game
“I think kickoff return is probably the most frustrating unit right now that we need to improve the most on. That’s certainly the unit we have not kind of achieved our objectives at and being as consistent as we want to.
“I think when we came in the spring and looked at things, the thing that’s a little frustrating is it’s one of the areas we really need to improve on. We worked a lot at it. We’ve seen some improvements, but it’s kind of a step forward, take a step back kind of thing. We have worked a lot on it and haven’t seen some of the improvements.
“We tried to make some adjustments to fit our personnel and stuff. There’s been some weeks where we faced some really good kickers and haven’t had a lot of opportunities. There have been some weeks where we haven’t taken advantage of our opportunities and it’s usually as it wrongly goes in the return game.
“Ten guys doing something right and one slip-up that causes an issue. Everybody always says we were close in the return game, woulda, coulda, shoulda. We just gotta improve and be more consistent in kickoff return. We can’t have situations where we give bad offensive field position like we did in the USC game and get a penalty or just have to call for fair catches.”
