DB Dillon Willing to Catch Punts
May 05, 2015 11:36 AM | General
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| KJ Dillon leaps into the end zone to score a touchdown during the 2014 Liberty Bowl played in Memphis, Tennessee. | |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
For Holgorsen, the topic of West Virginia’s struggling punt return game has been coming up more frequently ever since Tavon Austin departed for the NFL in 2013.
“(The punt return situation) has been very well documented because of y’all (media) and it’s a complete nightmare for me,” Holgorsen said following the Gold-Blue Spring Game.
Indeed, it has been a sore spot for the Mountaineers.
Last year’s returners managed to bring back 26 punts for a measly 78 yards. And that’s the good news.
The bad news is 18 punts were either not handled or left to bounce on the ground headed backwards. It’s difficult to ascertain just how many hidden yards West Virginia’s punt return game surrendered last year, but it is safe to say that it was a lot.
Even worse were the punts that were mishandled and fumbled deep in West Virginia’s own territory.
As a basis of comparison, Kansas, which sent out its spring football prospectus this week, had just six punts out of 56 last year that were not handled by its returners (that, of course, could also include punts that were kicked out of bounds).
Oklahoma had just three.
Considering how much West Virginia has struggled to catch punts that last two years it would be foolish for the other team to ever consider kicking the ball out of bounds.
In the past that was not necessarily the case. West Virginia has had a history of producing great punt returners, from Jack Stone and Vic “Jack” Rabbits in the 1950s, to John Mallory and Leon Jenkins in the 1960s and early 1970s, to Danny Buggs and Fulton Walker in the mid to late 1970s, to Willie Drewrey and Grantis Bell in the 1980s.
More recently, guys such as Michael Baker, Mike Logan, Rahsaan Vanterpool, Antonio Brown, Lance Frazier, Pacman Jones and Austin were able to keep the field from being flipped, and in many instances, turned the game around with their ability to elude oncoming tacklers and take it to the house.
There is a characteristic all of these players shared: self-confidence.
“The confidence has got to be there in order to be a good punt returner,” said Holgorsen. “I played golf with Pacman Jones and we all know that he’s an All-American, All-Pro punt returner. Well, that dude’s got more confidence than anybody in the world.”
The guys West Virginia has had out there the last couple of years, for whatever reasons, clearly don’t have the confidence to catch punts and that is something the Mountaineers desperately need to get fixed this year.
That’s why senior KJ Dillon decided to jump in there, take the bull by the horns and field some punts during the spring game.
“I know we’ve struggled with it for the past couple of years and I’d rather go back there and make a difference,” Dillon shrugged. “I noticed during the season when we finally got someone to catch the ball the whole crowd started clapping. I was like, ‘Why are they clapping?’ They said, ‘Well, we never had anyone catch the ball.’”
“He looked good didn’t he,” Holgorsen deadpanned. “He just lined up and started catching punts and I said ‘wow’ and we put him back there. We need a guy with some confidence back there and right now the two most confident guys on our football team back there are KJ Dillon and (backup quarterback) William Crest.”
Dillon is clearly a player who does not lack confidence.
That self-confidence has been on display for the last three years playing spur safety, one of the most demanding positions in West Virginia’s 3-3 Stack defense.
The spur is so challenging to play because he has to be big and physical enough to take on blockers at the line of scrimmage and he also has to be fast and agile enough to cover smaller players in space.
Dillon is that guy and, yes, it bears repeating, he does not lack self-confidence.
“When you play DB you’ve got to be a man,” he explained. “You’ve got to do what the other guy does backwards. I’ve just got to go out there and think I’m the best at my position and I’m the best on the field right now and this dude in front of me is not going to beat me.”
Or in the case of being a punt returner, drop the football or get tackled.
“I can run,” he noted. “People may not see that because I play DB, but I can run.”
We saw that in last year’s Liberty Bowl when Dillon stepped in front of a Kyle Allen pass in the flat and took it 35 yards for a touchdown. Dillon also showed his ability to run with the ball as a kick returner at Apopka (Florida) High.
“I recruited him to be a kick returner because he’s tough and he’s fast,” said Holgorsen. “He went back there and looked great so then he just started catching punts. It was the same thing William Crest did. (Crest) said, ‘Do you want me to catch some punts?’ I said ‘yeah’ and he looked good doing it.”
Dillon admits it was almost an accident that he began catching punts.
“I was catching some kickoffs (during pregame warm-ups) and by mistake I started catching punts,” said Dillon. “The ball was coming and I started catching them so it was like, ‘I don’t care if you go back and catch some.’ Squirt (Jordan Thompson) went on the field and I was like, ‘No, I’ve got this. Let me take the first one.’ He let me get it and he said, ‘You might as well stay back there.’”
It’s one thing to catch punts in during the spring game when it’s not live but it’s something else entirely when 11 guys are bearing down on you in front of 60,000 screaming fans.
So, will Dillon be standing out there this fall when the games count? He said he’s not sure.
“I doubt if I’ll be back there during the season, but if I am, I know what I’m doing back there,” Dillon said. “It’s just catch and run, really.”
Right now, Mountaineer fans will gladly take the catch part first.
Whether or not Dillon (or Crest) is the guy this fall remains to be seen, but just to be safe Dillon said he plans on catching more punts this summer to be ready.
Who knows, perhaps Dillon or Crest may be the answer to one of the remaining sore spots on the team?
Both of them have the self-confidence to go out there and give it a try. More importantly, their coach has confidence in them.
“Great punt returners need to have that confidence and both of those kids have got it,” Holgorsen concluded.
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