Field position was not kind to the Cincinnati Bearcats in 2016. To be fair, there was not much kindness to be found anywhere on the roster, but UC was particularly bad at giving itself a jump start on offense, starting most drives quite a ways from the end zone. In fact, the Bearcats ranked 125th out of 128 teams in the country in starting field position, according to Football Outsiders.
That field position problem isn’t entirely due to special teams, but lackluster results in the return game certainly did very little to improve UC’s starting point for most drives.