Fall Camp Questions: Part X – Who will shine on Oregon’s special teams?

Behold! Football season is nigh!

Believe it or not, mere weeks separate us between now and the start of fall camp for the Oregon Ducks. As preseason camp fast approaches, we at WFOD will be rolling out a series of previews to help fully prepare you for the upcoming season.

Monday marks the conclusion of our Fall Camp Questions series, which aims to address the most pressing questions surrounding each position group in the build up to the 2018 campaign.

Today’s question…

Who will shine on Oregon’s special teams?

Aside from the steady leg of kicker Aidan Schneider and Tony Brooks-James’ touchdown in the season opener on the game’s opening kickoff, a look back at the play of Oregon’s special teams in 2017 doesn’t offer much in terms of moments you can harken back to. And frankly, it offers even less in terms of what can be expected in 2018.

Though Brooks-James returns as a good bet to once again see action in the kick return game, Schneider is gone, and with him leaves one of the most accurate legs in school history. The player most expect to fill his enormous shoes is sophomore Adam Stack, who didn’t attempt a single extra point or field goal a season ago, but did serve as the team’s full-time punter. Despite being ranked as one of the top kicking specialists coming out of the 2017 recruiting class, Stack struggled with consistency in his first year with the Ducks, averaging 38.4 yards per punt, ranking him 10th among Pac-12 punters.

Fall Camp Questions: Part X – Who will shine on Oregon's special teams? — Oregon punter Tom Snee (Photo: Tom Snee/Twitter)

Stack figures to face stiff competition from true freshman Tom Snee, who comes to Eugene from Melbourne, Australia with the reputation for having a strong leg. Australia has earned a reputation over the years for being fertile territory for talented, yet unproven punting talent, and Snee is the personification of those sentiments. For all his natural ability, the next time Snee attempts a punt in a practice uniform will be first time he does so facing a live rush, making him easily the biggest wild card of any player joining the team from the 2018 class.

WFOD’s Prediction:

Special teams is arguably the biggest unknown for the Ducks heading into the upcoming season. Not only is Oregon replacing Schneider with a greenhorn at kicker, but they’re also breaking in a new special teams coordinator in former Alabama assistant Bobby Williams. In addition to that, the Ducks could also be breaking in a new punter depending on how the battle between Stack, Snee, and redshirt junior walk-on Blake Maimone shakes out. That’s a lot of new faces in a lot of new places, making it extremely difficult to handicap the level of success this group might experience in 2018. With that said, Snee feels like a player who could provide a jolt in an area where the Ducks notably struggled last season. If he can prove during fall camp that he is generally unphased by the live action taking place around him, it could mean that Oregon will find itself climbing the national punt efficiency rankings, where they ranked 83rd a year ago per Football Outsiders.