Will Presbyterian's Gamble on Kevin Kelley Pay Off?

The famed "coach who never punts" is getting a Division I job.

Few things stoke the rancor of the College Football Internet quite like punts. Next season, the naysayers of punting, the Sunday Morning Special Teams Coordinators, will have their champion in Kevin Kelley.

Long known nationally for his refusal to punt, or even perform traditional kickoffs and instead onside kicking after all scores, Kelley’s philosophy and success in Arkansas high school football have existed in the abstract.

For some, Kelley’s hyper-aggressive approach foreshadows the next evolutionary step in the sport the same way passing-offense visionaries shaped football. But at the same time, I cannot envision many genuinely believed we would ever see the philosophy in practice at the Div. I level.

Attempting such a unique strategy does make sense from the perspective that innovation in football has almost always come from smaller or less successful programs seeking a competitive edge.

With college football’s powerhouses adopting the offensive approaches initially designed to combat their physically imposing defensive style, it stands to reason special teams would be the next frontier.

And, it likewise stands to reason the first program to test the waters would have to tab an outsider. In hiring a high school coach who’s done things much differently than his college counterparts, Presbyterian has opened one of two doors.

Behind the first is Gus Malzahn, the prep-school innovator from the same state as Kelley, whose unique offensive insights propelled Auburn to a BCS Championship just five years after Malzahn coached his last high-school game.

Behind the other door is Todd Dodge. A celebrity of Texas high school football coaching, the innovations that made Dodge a champion and forward thinker at the prep level were disastrous for North Texas.

In an offseason during which Tennessee State hired 1995 Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George — a candidate with as much prior collegiate coaching experience as I have — Big South Conference member Presbyterian’s hire of Kelley is arguably the biggest gamble in the sport.

TSU’s hire of a recognizable face in George feels like a PR move, aiming to leverage notoriety into recruiting success and visibility, while the Xs and Os sort themselves out later. In Presbyterian’s case, Kelley comes aboard indicative of an entire ideology; one that could proliferate or die depending entirely on the Blue Hose’s success.

But that isn’t to say hiring Kelley isn’t also a PR move.

Presbyterian College football has been wholly unremarkable in its 14 years since moving from Div. II to Div. I. Excluding its transitional season in 2007, the Blue Hose have posted a winning record just once, and never been to the FCS Playoffs.

Residing in a state with perennial College Football Playoff contender Clemson, an SEC program in South Carolina, the meteoric rise of Coastal Carolina and even the routine success of Wofford with its old-school, Flexbone offense, garnering attention is a chore.

Since Justin Bethel’s NFL draft selection in 2012, Kelley’s hire is the first time Blue Hose football has generated national headlines. And they’re headlines some folks have waited years to write.

Kevin Kelley first came on my radar through Gregg Easterbrook’s column at Page 2 ¹ in 2007. Below’s an excerpt:

Easterbrook was one of the more visible and persistent critics of coaching conservatism on fourth down, and thus, advocated for Kelley routinely. TMQ went so far as to dedicate a weekly paragraph to Pulaski’s performance.

But Kelley’s media support wasn’t limited to Easterbrook. Less than two months before Presbyterian hired Kelley, Andy Staples wrote a piece at The Athletic calling for Power Five program Kansas to tab the Pulaski Academy coach.

Kelley’s had a consistent presence in national publications for the better part of a decade, his unorthodox approach presented almost as an eccentricity as much it is a strategy — much like Mike Leach and the air-raid offense.

It seems to border on cult of personality at times, but that’s a matter of personal perspective. I have purely football-related reservations, if not skepticism, about the eschewing of traditional special teams.

Data to support or refute the effectiveness of always going for it doesn’t exist at the college level, which why Kelley’s tenure at Presbyterian could prove so pivotal to the discussion.

Data does exist, however, that suggests there isn’t necessarily a correlation between going for it often and winning.

Three teams that ranked near the bottom for fourth-down conversion attempts in 2020 were Alabama, Ohio State and Texas A&M. In 2019, Oklahoma ranked in the bottom 10 for fourth-down attempts, and LSU ranked next-to-last.

Georgia was near the bottom in 2017, Washington in 2016, and so on.

Now, the infrequency of fourth-down conversion attempts is in part a byproduct of simply being good enough to avoid fourth downs. Elon coach Tony Trisciani put it best when I asked him about the subject earlier this spring: “You tend to see more fourth-down attempts when you’re not great on first, second and third down.”

At the same time, something that jumped out to me is how middling-to-bad these great teams that infrequently went for it on fourth down were at converting those attempts.

Alabama’s historical effective offense this past season converted 55 percent of its attempts, which ranks in the lower-third of FBS teams. LSU’s outstanding offense a year prior? 67 percent, earning the George Costanza stamp of approval for falling right in the meaty part of the curve.

Louisiana was one of the better teams in the 2020 season to go for it on fourth down frequently, but the Ragin’ Cajuns converted at one of the worst clips, 44 percent.

ULL’s attempts put it in company with teams like Louisiana-Monroe, which went 0-10, and the same Kansas program that at least one national personality advocated adopt the Kelley method.

Conversely, a fourth-down adjacent statistic that more frequently tied into winning was average starting field position.

Kansas was the single-worst team in the nation in average starting field position last season, with opponents beginning drives on average inside their own 37-yard line. Next was Arizona, the team that most closely rivaled Kansas for worst Power Five squad of 2020.

Among the best in average starting field position? Ohio State (4), Georgia (5), Florida (7), Notre Dame (9), Alabama (10), Texas A&M (11), BYU (16), and Coastal Carolina (17)².

Alabama attempted 32 punts last season; its punters pinned opponents inside the 20-yard line 13 times. Ohio State attempted 30 punts with 13 inside the 20.

This isn’t to posit that Punting Is Winning, nor to suggest merely punting an opponent deep is a guaranteed recipe for success. It doesn’t matter if an opposing offense starts drives in the red zone or outside the stadium if the defense lacks the players or scheme to make stops.

But that’s a situational decision — and situational football is at the heart of my skepticism about Presbyterian’s prospects if Kelley adopts the same formula there as he did at Pulaski.

There is an arrogance among the commentariat when it comes to punting, the thought that they have insight coaches are too stubborn to accept. I am not suggesting Kelley is guilty of this, to be clear.

Anyway, I think back specifically to Oregon’s win over Washington State in 2019, when Mario Cristobal’s decision to punt on a fourth down on the Cougars side of the field was almost universally panned. Some variation of the same question circles among college football voices in these moments: Why don’t coaches consult the analytics?

Analytics isn’t a synonym for “always go,” though. Analytics comes down to measuring probability and applying best practices based on the available data. I cite Oregon’s punt against Washington State specifically because, in the days afterward, Cristobal was asked about the decision at his weekly press conference.

He offered up a peek behind the curtain, nothing that Oregon does, in fact, analyze data and the decisions are made based on field position, down-and-distance, time remaining and the defense’s performance to that point. And in that game, at that moment, their internal analysis called for a punt.

Football has a fluidity to it that requires in-game adaptation on the micro level, and systemic evolution at the macro level. Stubbornness rarely succeeds, hence why we see Nick Saban running a variation of the spread offense just a few years after suggesting the scheme is a detriment to the sport.

I’m of the belief that stubbornness pertains as much to always going for it on fourth down as it does always kicking on fourth down.

Kevin Kelley can now prove me and others of my mindset wrong. If he doesn’t, it may be a while before another program attempts a similar gamble.

1. I wrote a eulogy for Page 2, a publication for which I freelanced pretty regularly in the early 2010s before its death, on my Patreon.

2. Starting field position data via Football Outsiders.