Mythbusters: Has A.J. Hughes Regressed?

It's August 31, 2013, and the Georgia Dome is roaring as Virginia Tech opens the season against No. 1 Alabama. After picking up just a yard on three downs, the Hokie punt team lines up at their own 18-yard line. A.J. Hughes takes the snap and launches a booming 54-yard punt straight up the field, landing in the waiting hands of Christion Jones a moment before the coverage can get to him. A moment is all he needs as he makes a couple of defenders miss in open space and takes the kick 72-yards for a touchdown.

For David to knock off Goliath, a special teams breakdown was a huge hole to climb out of just two minutes into a game.

To the casual fan, the deep punt by A.J. well into Alabama territory was a thing of beauty, while the inability of the coverage to make a tackle was gut-wrenching. But punting is much more complex than simply kicking the ball as far down field as possible, and few coaches would judge a punter simply by his average yards per punt.

However, that's exactly what fans are doing as they continue to look at A.J.'s punting numbers and question whether one of the best punters in the country has actually regressed this season. So has he? To answer the question, one has to look at more than just punting distance, which shows a clear drop-off from 2013 to 2014:

A drop-off of 2.5 yards in 2013 would have been the difference between being the No. 14 punter nationally by distance and No. 50. Additionally, over the course of a season, that's giving up almost 200 yards of field position.

Except it isn't.

A punter's job usually is not to kick as far as possible, but to kick as far as possible while giving the coverage team enough time to get to the returner. Christion Jones did not return a punt 72 yards simply because Tech is inept at tackling, but at least partly because that beautiful booming punt gave him a chance to start running before the first two tacklers could wrap him up. The goal of a punt is not to kick the ball as far as possible, but rather to push the opponent's starting field position as far back as possible: therefore both the punt and the return must be considered.

For punts that were returned, the return distance by year is below:

Quite a substantial difference...even if the two outliers from 2013 are removed, opposing teams are getting much less out of returns. In fact, Virginia Tech has moved from the 107th lowest opposing punt return average in 2013 to the 13th this season.

Furthermore, the result of every punt can be broken down by season:

There are three substantial differences thus far in 2014:

1. The percentage of punts that are returned have dropped from 43.6% to 36.5%. If you don't want Christion Jones to return your punt for a touchdown, try to not let him return it at all.
2. The percentage of punts that result in touchbacks has dropped from 10.3% to 3.8%. There is a huge field position advantage in getting the ball at the 20 as opposed to inside the 5.
3. The percentage of punts that are downed by the Hokies has risen from 15.4% to 25%. A downed punt means there was no return, and more often than not additional yards were gained on the roll.

Putting it all together, we can look at the net field position difference (the distance from the line of scrimmage on the punt to the where the ball is downed, a touchdown is scored, or the returner fumbles) on all punts in 2013 to 2014 to gauge the effectiveness of A.J.'s punts:

So despite losing 2.5 yards on the punt itself, Tech is actually gaining an additional two yards of field position on punts this season. And THAT is the goal of the punt.

Myth: Busted.