Breaking Down The Bowl Game: Special Teams

This was once an area of strength, but the struggles with PK Gary Cismesia, who has missed several field goals in recent games, along with struggles in kick coverage, have cast this unit into a poor-performance category. The only bright spot against Florida was punter Graham Gano enjoying one of his best games, along with the return capability of Michael Ray Garvin.

The field goal kicking and punting game of FSU and UCLA have already been discussed and broken down separately. The additional aspects of special teams is kick off returns as well as punt returns.

Both FSU and UCLA have similar numbers here:

FSU: Kick return avg.- 18.4
Punt return avg. - 8.9 yards

UCLA: kick return avg- 20 yards
Punt return average- 9.2 yards

When you combine field goal kicking and punting with these numbers.the answer is:

Advantage: UCLA