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Photo by: Tab Brockman
Spring Practice: The Special Teams
4/15/2015 9:52:00 AM | Football
As part of GoRacers.com continuing coverage of Murray State football's 2015 spring practice, the focus now shifts to special teams. Brandon Cooper, who is also the linebackers coach, is in his first season in charge of the Racer special teams unit.
Cooper has had experience with the special teams prior to arriving at Murray State and brings a lot of techniques from other schools with him. In addition he has done research and watched film to try to find new and exciting things that will work at MSU.
"So far it has come together pretty well as far as my philosophy and what I want accomplished," said Cooper. "I think for us we want to be sound, just like the offense and defense, we want to be sound with what we're doing. We ask the guys to just play, we don't want them to think, we just want them to play fast".
The Racers have two senior kickers on the team, Carson Greifenkamp and Connor Mitchell. Greifenkamp played all 12 games last season and converted on 11 of 16 in field goals last season, to go along with 73 kickoffs for a total of 4,275 yards. Mitchell appeared in one game last season and had one kick off that reached 61 yards.
One of the main goals for the spring for Cooper is working with Greifenkamp and Mitchell to see what each is capable of, as the fall approaches. He will continue to get both kickers maximum reps, so they can continue to progress this spring.
"We're working on competition based drills to see who can actually do what, from there we will build a depth chart and we will roll with the schematic," Cooper added. "It's all about what those guys can do now, that will tell us where we will be in the fall".
The special teams also include returners such as consensus All-American Pokey Harris, Janawski Davis and DeQavius Walker. Harris had a total of 32 returns last season, for an impressive total of 920 yards. He returned the ball twice for 100 yards in 2014, making him the first returner in Murray State history to do so.
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Cooper has had experience with the special teams prior to arriving at Murray State and brings a lot of techniques from other schools with him. In addition he has done research and watched film to try to find new and exciting things that will work at MSU.
"So far it has come together pretty well as far as my philosophy and what I want accomplished," said Cooper. "I think for us we want to be sound, just like the offense and defense, we want to be sound with what we're doing. We ask the guys to just play, we don't want them to think, we just want them to play fast".
The Racers have two senior kickers on the team, Carson Greifenkamp and Connor Mitchell. Greifenkamp played all 12 games last season and converted on 11 of 16 in field goals last season, to go along with 73 kickoffs for a total of 4,275 yards. Mitchell appeared in one game last season and had one kick off that reached 61 yards.
One of the main goals for the spring for Cooper is working with Greifenkamp and Mitchell to see what each is capable of, as the fall approaches. He will continue to get both kickers maximum reps, so they can continue to progress this spring.
"We're working on competition based drills to see who can actually do what, from there we will build a depth chart and we will roll with the schematic," Cooper added. "It's all about what those guys can do now, that will tell us where we will be in the fall".
The special teams also include returners such as consensus All-American Pokey Harris, Janawski Davis and DeQavius Walker. Harris had a total of 32 returns last season, for an impressive total of 920 yards. He returned the ball twice for 100 yards in 2014, making him the first returner in Murray State history to do so.
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