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Nick Saban conveys confidence in Kool-Aid McKinstry’s decision-making on punt returns despite misfires
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Kool-Aid McKinstry hasn’t had the same success on punt returns this season as he did a year ago.
In the 2022 season, he racked up 332 yards on 23 punt returns. This year, he’s amassed just 58 yards on 11 attempts. A big part of that drop off is because punters are choosing to not let him return it as often.
Nick Saban gave his thought’s on McKinstry’s production this season during the SEC coaches teleconference Wednesday.
“First of all, Kool-Aid’s done a great job for us back there,” Saban said. “I think that a lot of people are kicking the ball away from him because we had a lot of success on punt return last year. So he’s had a lot of difficult balls to field. In other words, they’re not just kicking the ball to him most of the time.”
On Saturday against Tennessee, McKinstry had several miscues that could have been costly.
“I do think that everybody got all concerned about this, there were 2 balls in the game, one he could have caught probably would have been a tough catch,” Saban said. “And the last one, which went to the 1-yard line which was significant, he really mis-judged the ball. And these guys that are rugby punters, the ball doesn’t travel exactly like a normal punt. So this ball flew on him a little bit, you can see on the film when you watch it that the ball was going to go over his head and he was going to have to catch it outside his body and make a tough catch rather than take a chance on doing that, he let the ball go. And unfortunately, for us, it rolled to the 1-yard line.”
But Saban believes in McKrinstry and will continue trusting him on punt returns. He says the misfires recently are not cause for concern yet, so he will continue letting him make returns.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in him. I think he has confidence in doing it,” Saban said. “I don’t think he has an issue. He wants to be back there, he wants to be aggressive, he wants to do what he has to do to be able to return punts and we’ve got total confidence in him.”
McKinstry will have a bye week this week to get back in rhythm on punt returns as the Tide prepare to take on LSU next week.
