Columnist Ron Kantowski: Football a waste of down

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2001 | 10:55 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

Imagine somebody handing you $100,000 to make home improvements, and you opted to spend only $75,000. And you couldn't save the remaining $25,000 to add a home theatre on a rainy day.

That's basically the way football has been played during our lifetime.

Even though the rule book says you get four downs to make 10 yards and a first down, virtually every coach operates as if he has only three downs to work with. Thus many games are dominated by dueling punters, who are instructed to kick the ball away on fourth down, almost regardless of the situation.

I suppose if you have a guy like Ray Guy, whose best efforts were fair caught somewhere in the vicinity of Neptune, turning the game into a quest for field position almost makes sense.

But at UNLV and other schools, where special teams seem to be a bigger afterthought than a grocery store birthday card, where's the logic in kicking the ball away -- or in the Rebels' case, at least trying to kick the ball away -- prematurely?

Steve Spurrier might be the only head coach who would consider the following. But were I wearing the headset on Saturday afternoon and flanked by a couple of state troopers (coaches assigned Smokeys for bodyguards usually don't get second-guessed), I would go for it on fourth-and-fewer-than-five virtually every time my team advanced beyond its own 35-yard line.

The main reason I would go for it if I'm Florida is because I'm a cocky son-of-a-gun who believes one of my blue chip recruits is capable of making a play that can net four yards, or else I probably wouldn't have offered him tuition, room and board and a sports utility vehicle in the first place.

The main reason I would go for it if I'm UNLV is because punting the ball is a lot like the Army -- an adventure. The Rebels had yet another punt blocked for a touchdown against Utah last week, and when Gary Cook does manage to get his kick off, the trajectory often resembles one of Ichiro's base hits -- a line drive up the middle.

And here's another thing to consider. If you punted the ball from your own 10-yard line, the kick traveled 40 yards and was returned 10 yards, the opponent would take over at your 40-yard line -- a totally ordinary and accepted circumstance.

So why not just go for it at your own 40? You might even keep the drive alive and score some points. At worst, you're going to keep your lame defense off the field for another series of downs.

Coaches always talk about how important special teams are. But if that is the case, why are there offensive and defensive coordinators but very few special teams coordinators? And why aren't more players recruited specifically for those positions?

Almost without exception, the deep snapper on the punt team is a backup center, while the guys who run down to cover punts and kickoffs are reserve players or even walk-ons. If special teams are so critical -- and I'm not suggesting they aren't -- then why don't coaches put their best 11 players on the field on fourth down, just as they would on first or second or third?

It doesn't make sense. Neither does automatically kicking the ball away on fourth-and-short from within your own territory, when gaining a yard or two is far more likely than getting off and covering a 50-yard punt.

Besides, when was the last time you heard the home crowd chant "Punt!" on fourth-and-one?