Down The Drive · Jan 19, 2018
Season in Review: James Smith
The Numbers
64 punts
42 yards per punt
21 inside the 20-yard line
9 punts of at least 50 yards
If it was up to every college football team, there would be no need for punting. Your offense would score every time it got the ball and never be forced into fourth down situations. But that’s not how football works, so punts happen. They happen a lot when your team goes 4-8 and has an offense that scores fewer points than anyone else in its conference. That’s the situation the Cincinnati Bearcats found themselves in during 2017, but James Smith made sure punting was, if not a must-watch part of the game, at least not a painful one.