2023 Gophers Position Previews: Special Teams

If you can believe it, football is almost here. Seriously. For the third year running, Ski-U-Blog will have previews of every position group entering Minnesota's season. The series concludes with a look at the special teams unit.

Likely Starters

The Gophers' special teams have taken real strides forward over the last couple of seasons. One key part of those efforts has been Dragan Kesich, who produced a touchback on 54 of his 67 kickoffs a season ago. His teammates provided solid coverage to boot on the kicks that didn't reach the end zone, only allowing opposing returners to reach about the 23-yard line on average. Minnesota's success on kickoffs is a large reason they won the field position battle in 10 of their 13 games last year.

The 2023 season brings a new challenge for Kesich, though: placekicking. In a live game, Kesich has tried exactly one field goal or extra point: a 53-yarder at Kinnick Stadium in 2021 that was blocked. For comparison: When Matthew Trickett became Minnesota's starting placekicker, he had already attempted 57 field goals and 95 PATs at Kent State.

There's no denying the strength of his leg, but Kesich needs to prove he now has the accuracy to make that count. The spring game showed good signs. He converted on four of four field goal attempts, including two from beyond 45 yards.

If that indicates anything, then the kicking situation could be okay. Probably not as efficient as with Trickett, but decent enough.

The snapper for Kesich will be Brady Weeks, who continues to go unnoticed because he hasn't done anything wrong yet. The returning holder is Mark Crawford, who is of course the punter again as well.

Crawford's 2022 season was not especially good or bad. According to Pro Football Focus, he improved his hangtime by a tenth of a second, which still did not take him out of the bottom quartile of FBS punters (minimum 20 attempts). His punting average of 40.6 is not special, either. Crawford's fair catches increased by five, though, and he still ranked in the top half of the country in return rate.

In other words, Crawford is a passable punter. Not outstanding, though he has his moments; and not terrible, though one wishes he could really boot it sometimes. He has another year of eligibility after this one, so the Gophers could be assured two more seasons of at least passable punting.

Quentin Redding — officially the shortest Gopher at 5-foot-7 — is back to return kicks and punts after a decent first season in the job. "Decent" may seem less complimentary than Redding deserves when he averaged 25.4 yards per kick return last year, but that figure is skewed by a couple of big plays. While it's true every effective returner will have their averages inflated by one or two long runs, if you remove Redding's 92- and 72-yard outliers, he only averaged 19.1 yards per return. To justify turning down a touchback, a return man has to make it count. That means either creating more big plays or more consistently reaching the 25-yard line. Otherwise, he's giving up valuable field position.

On his long returns, Redding also showed partly why he only had a reported one Division I scholarship offer. He's definitely shifty, with great acceleration and enough speed to burn a gunner taking a poor angle. But Redding has not yet shown he has the speed to leave everyone behind and go the distance.

None of this is to say Redding is not fit for the job. He's a redshirt sophomore coming off his first action in the Big Ten, and he's already provided some excitement. With the experienced he gained, plus an offseason of development, he could take off this season.

Key Backups

The depth chart at kicker is a little thin, so Minnesota has added reinforcements through the transfer market. The first is Jacob Lewis, who gave a respectable one-season showing at Ball State before redshirting in 2022. The Cardinals apparently found a kicker they like in Ben VonGunten, so Lewis came to the U of M to use his last three years of eligibility.

Lewis was Ball State's kickoff specialist and mostly took the team's longer field goals in 2021. He seems to have something, having converted eight of his nine attempts in college from 43 yards or longer. That includes a 51-yarder in his true freshman season.

That said, Lewis also has misses of 28, 34, and 39 yards on his résumé. We're dealing with a fairly small sample, so those could either be a warning sign or mean little. Either way, Lewis probably won't feature much immediately unless Kesich doesn't pan out.

Punter Ryan Shamburger has yet to appear for the Gophers since arriving from Navarro College (Texas) a year ago. If he does, it will only be due to injury or once Crawford is gone from the program. His punting stats in junior college were underwhelming. Shamburger is here just as cover.

True freshman Ryan Algrim is the backup snapper, meanwhile. With Weeks done after 2023, Algrim will probably step into the lineup next season.

Picking a reserve returner is tricky when the only current Gopher, other than Redding, who returned a kick or punt last year is Derik LeCaptain. For all his uses, this is one job that doesn't suit LeCaptain.

Justin Walley has fielded kicks in practices and warmups before, as well as Kristen Hoskins. Sean Tyler has in-game experience on kickoffs; so does Tre'Von Jones on punts. The Gophers will probably throw a true freshman onto the field for returns only if there is a major injury crisis, so for now, consider Za'Quan Bryan and Kerry Brown candidates for the future.

Notables Unlikely to Contribute

The other transfer kicker is David Kemp, whose track record at Memphis is not terribly impressive or long: In 2021, he hit four kicks from 28 yards or shorter and one from 40, missed from 36 and 53, and went 7-for-9 on PATs. Kemp is solidly the third-stringer.

The Gophers' newest punter is Apple Valley's Caleb McGrath. Kohl's Kicking rated him as the 4th-best punting prospect in the 2023 class, so he might well be second in line. The athletic department website notes that McGrath is ambipedal, which is highly unlikely to come up in a game but is a fun fact.