Explaining Vanderbilt Football's Punt Blunder Before Halftime

Vanderbilt punter Nick Haberer took a snap on 4th and 27 from his own goal line 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage with 48 seconds remaining in the first half of Vanderbilt’s ReliaQuest Bowl matchup against Iowa.

Haberer ran to his right a little over 15 yards down the field, then dropkicked the ball to Iowa’s own 32-yard line. What was supposed to be a normal punt turned out to be a grave mistake. Because Haberer ran to the 15-and-a-half yard line –a step beyond the line of scrimmage – he drew an illegal kick penalty.

The illegal kick rule states that if the punter runs past the line of scrimmage before punting the ball, then the ball goes five yards ahead of where the previous spot was. Since Vanderbilt snapped it from its own 15-yard line, the penalty gave Iowa the ball on the Vanderbilt 10-yard line after the penalty yards went into effect.

In essence, it was equivalent to if Vanderbilt went for it on 4th and 27 and turned the ball over on downs with a five-yard loss. On the ensuing Iowa play, Hawkeyes quarterback Mark Gronowski threw a 10-yard touchdown to his receiver Reece Vander Zee to give Iowa a 14-3 lead.

Who knows what would have happened if Iowa started its possession in the final 40 seconds of the first half from its own 32-yard line, but what is known is that the seven points Iowa stole before going into the locker room loomed large by the end as Vanderbilt lost 34-27.

The idea of Haberer running down field before punting the ball was to help neutralize Iowa’s special teams threat in the punt return game. With Haberer running down the field toward the line of scrimmage, it allows for time for Vanderbilt players to get down the field in punt coverage.

“One of their most dangerous players is their punt returner, and so we knew that coming in. One of the ways you can neutralize a return is just by rolling out and extending the amount of time the punt holds the ball. So different from hang time, it makes it effective on a rugby punt. That’s what the attempt was,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said on what the strategy of the punt play was.

As the play was happening, Lea told Haberer to run down the field a little bit before punting the ball. Unfortunately for Vanderbilt, Haberer ran a step too far, resulting in him being past the line of scrimmage and drawing the penalty.

Regardless of the penalty, the strategy does make sense. Iowa has been known for its special teams unit being a difference maker in plenty of games over the years. The Hawkeyes have won games in the past due to the battle of field position that came off great punt and kickoff returns. Iowa came into the ReliaQuest Bowl as the top team in college football in punt return yards. If Lea and his team could limit the impact of Iowa’s special teams, they would do whatever they could to do so.

“I think Nick just lost track of where he was in the field. There was a time there where I was yelling, ‘run, run, run.’ And had it been a more manageable conversion attempt, I think that there would have been room for that,” Lea said.  “But Nick Haberer has been fantastic this season. We probably used him a little more than we wanted to today, but it's a great lesson for us all.”

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