Why is Blake Warren catching punts?

[Big10Ponyfan]

Where should we begin. He had several last year. There was one early against Tulsa, another against ECU and one against Rice?

This year, he catches a punt inside the 10 at UNT and two fumbles (one counts because of the offsetting penalties -- by the way how bad was that roughing the punter call on us? We were blocked into him. But the punter did a great job of selling that to the official).

I know he's fast, but he is accident waiting to happen on returns. I've been tired of this act for two years. It's ridiculous.

By the way, Jesse Henderson did not dress last night. Guess the ankle problem is lingering.

[WorldStang]

Yes, ankle is lingering for Henderson..

And I don't really agree with you about Blake Warren. He would have scored pretty easily had he held on to the ball on one punt return last night. The other fumble wasn't his fault.. no chance to catch the ball.. and there was a flag on that one.

I worry more about Emmanuel Sanders on Kick Returns. Would rather see Bryan McCann back there..

[Big10Ponyfan]

I stand corrected on the first with the offsetting penalties. My bad. But I'm looking at the body of work. On the fumble that Sledge recovered, Warren caught that ball with his fingertips near his helmet and didn't tuck it.

We've just seen these mistakes over and over and over again. But if you saw, when Warren came off the field, Bennett greeted, said something encouraging, patted him on the helmet and gave a small hug. That was a good move by Phil.

[MustangStealth]

What are our other options? I don't know if you've noticed, but 90% of our players don't protect the ball. Blake can handle it and do a good job, but our coaches need to work with him (and many others) about putting the ball away when you run with it. We have not shown any improvement since the season started in that area.

[Horseshoe]

Warren is on the cusp of becoming the most prolific punt returner in SMU history. In a high-risk job like that, there are going to be miscues. Overall, Flea has done a damn good job since he took over.

[Stallion]

Really he does a great job of punt returning. He set up the go-ahead points last nite-although he did fumble. I have no problems with his punt returning where he annually is in at least the upper quarter in the Nation. The area that needs improvement is at receiver where he has trouble getting off the line and making plays downfield. Its amazing to me how elusive he is on punt returns but doesn't show that elusiveness at Receiver. Guess he needs a head of steam.

[Big10Ponyfan]

I'm not disputing the athleticism he shows, but it's frustrating when he has trouble catching or holding on to football. Sometimes, those issues negate his talents.

[The PonyGrad]

Don't forget the PR for a TD called back vs. ECU.

[FloridaMustang]

BW does a great job returning punts.. he's usually pretty sure handed too. On the fumble that came out, he got a little excited because he had nothing but endzone in front of him and the guy came from behind and stripped him.. I can forgive that. As for all the fumbles, the UAB coaches obviously saw that we werent protecting the ball well on film and that's why they were going for the ball so often.

[mavsrage311]

hopefully starting next year, we'll see Bryan McCann returning punts, his youtube video still awes me

[gostangs]

I believe he also had one called back at the Baylor game two yrs ago - would have won us the game. he is not a problem - He is probably going to score for us on one of those before the season is out. I predict at Rice.