UCLA Football Preview: NCCU Special Teams Don't Have Much Leg
UCLA Football Preview: NCCU Special Teams Don't Have Much Leg
North Carolina Central's punting and kickoff teams just aren't able to pin teams deep while the field goal kicking is limited to about 40 yards.
On Saturday, the UCLA Bruins will host the North Carolina Central Eagles in the first football game between the two schools despite the fact that the schools started their football programs within four years of each other. So, while we are familiar with UCLA’s rich football history, North Carolina Central has almost as much history as the Bruins. Overall, the Eagles’ all-time record is 497-405-30 while UCLA’s all-time record is 629–438–37.
NCCU is a member of the MEAC, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, whose full members are historically black colleges and universities in the Southeastern and the Mid-Atlantic portions of the country. The most well-known member of the MEAC is probably Howard.
The Eagles are currently ranked 17th in the FCS and they own the second-longest active winning streak in the FCS at seven games.
Let’s look at the North Carolina Central special teams.
Special Teams
Two-time All-MEAC first team recipient Adrian Olivo will handle all of the placekicking duties for the Eagles. The senior from Plant City, Florida has made three of four field goal attempts this season and his season long field goal came from 40 yards. His career long is from 43 yards, though he missed an attempt from 43 against North Carolina A&T last weekend. So, don’t expect him to be trying anything much longer than 40 yards.
He has made eight of nine PATs this year and has made 108 of 118 during his career at NCCU. So, he’s missed PATs about 8.5% of the time over the course of his college career.
While the Eagles’ depth chart doesn’t list a kickoff kicker, those dutied have been split between backup kicker Carlos Beltran-Rodriguez and punter Juan Velarde. All but one of Velarde’s kickoff came during the season opener against Winston-Salem State. Velarde has averaged about 54 yards per kickoff while Beltran-Rodriguez is averaging about 47 yards each time. So, regardless of who is kicking off, it’s reasonable to expect a pretty short kickoff each time. Only one kickoff by either has gone for a touchback. By comparison, UCLA’s Blake Glessner is averaging more than 10 yards more per kickoff.
Velarde is a junior whose longest punt of the season is just 47 yards. So, when the Bruin defense stops NCCU drives, you should expect UCLA to get reasonably good field position for their next drive.
Senior defensive back Brandon Codrington has take three of the Eagles’ four punt returns so far this season. One of his returns went for an 81-yard touchdown while is averaging 8.5 yards per return on the other two. So, he is a pretty dangerous return man. Freshman receiver Markell Quick returned the one punt that Codrington didn’t last week, but he lost four yards on it.
Kickoff return duties will be split between Codrington and junior running back J’Mari Taylor. Taylor’s three kickoff returns all came last weekend and he is averaging 16.33 yards per return. Codrington is averaging 25 yards per kickoff return so far this season.
Let’s check out the North Carolina Central coaching staff.
Coaching Staff
North Carolina Central head coach Trei Oliver took over the Eagles’ program in 2019 and this is his first head coaching job. He went 4-8 in his first season at his alma mater. After the Eagles opted not to play the 2020 season, he led the team to a 6-5 finish in 2021 before going 10-2 in 2022. So, Oliver has done a good job building the Eagles’ program. After playing at North Carolina Central from 1994 to 1997 as a defensive back and punter, almost all of his coaching experience has come on the defensive side of the ball. The only time he coached on the offensive side came when he was an assistant with the Eagles from 2003 to 2006 when he coached wide receivers in addition to coaching defensive backs and special teams. He was also the team’s recruiting coordinator at that time too.
Defensive coordinator Courtney Coard returned to his alma mater in 2022 after serving as the co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach at rival North Carolina A&T. He’s been coaching on the defensive side of the ball since 2009 and haas coached at Grambling and as a grad assistant at Georgia in 2015.
Matt Leone was named the Eagles’ offensive coordinator in January 2020 after spending four seasons as Southern’s quarterbacks coach. Leone’s teams are known for scoring a lot of points. Last season, the North Carolina Central offense was held to less than 20 points just once and they scored at least 28 points in nine of the 12 games.
Go Bruins!!!
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