Welcome back to “Breakdown,” where we’ll look at a KU play each week and try to go a little more in-depth into why it did or didn’t work.

For this blog, I have consulted a Div. II offensive assistant coach, someone we’ll just call “Coach.”

Here is the replay of the blocked punt in Southern Miss’ 31-16 victory over KU on Sept. 17. You can click back to this video as you read later in the blog if you need to.

Under special teams coach Aaron Stamn, KU has lined up in a punt setup similar to last year’s formation. Coach says this is known as an extreme spread punt formation.

“The benefit of having the extreme spread punt is that it allows for good coverage down the field,” Coach says. “With that, you’re obviously going to have bigger gaps in between each of your blockers as well.”

So why is the formation better with punt coverage?

Coach says that because KU’s players are spread out, they are already close to the coverage lanes they are responsible after the punt is kicked.

Though the players might spread out a bit more than they are positioned above, this formation makes it easier for the players than a Pro style punt formation, which bunches players in the middle with two gunners on the outside.

You can see above there’s a pretty significant gap between the center and the two blockers next to him.

Coach says any players who run through this area are to be blocked by KU’s three personal protectors, which on this play, are positioned on the 20-yard line.

Once the ball goes through to the punter, the middle personal protector — or hinge — comes between the two other two blockers to “close the door,” essentially creating a three-man wall.

“When (the hinge player) does that, each guy on the outside has to make sure that you’re tight enough with your middle player that you don’t allow anybody to go in between you right up the middle and have a free shot at your punter,” Coach says.

Because they’ll have players charging at them with a few-yards’ head start, Coach says that teams use bigger players as personal protectors — typically linebackers, bigger safeties and sometimes even smaller offensive linemen.

After going back to the film, it looks like KU uses two offensive linemen and one tight end as its personal protectors, as from left to right on your screen, it appears to be offensive lineman Michael Martinovich, tight end Bradley Dedeaux and offensive lineman Alex Smith.

So what goes wrong with this play?

Essentially, one person misses an extremely important block.

Let’s take a look midway through the play.

KU’s three personal protectors will be in charge of blocking the two Southern Miss players directly in front of them. Martinovich will take No. 43, while Dedeaux and Smith will double-team to block No. 6.

If you’re searching for a positive from this play, it can be this: Every KU blocker appears at this point to know exactly what his assignment is.

Let’s skip forward.

Here’s where the mistake takes place.

Though there might be fancier ways to put it, Coach says Martinovich basically throws a whiff on No. 43.

“He just gives him the shoulder — short-arms it and tries to get him with his shoulder and doesn’t shoot his hands into No. 43 as he’s probably being taught to shoot his hands,” Coach says.

So how are the personal protectors taught to block on such a play?

“Shoot your hands into the guy’s chest and try to stand the guy up,” Coach says, “instead of letting the guy have a free run at your punter.”

Without being impeded, No. 43 continues his straight run to Alonso Rojas and blocks the punt.

According to Coach, this should be the most frustrating part for the Jayhawks: Southern Miss didn’t even call an all-out punt block on the play.

Take a look just after the ball is snapped.

As you can see from the photo, six of Southern Miss’ 10 players on the line drop off the line to block in preparation for a punt return.

If you remember, there was a timeout right before this punt. And, as we reported after the game, Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora said he was convinced by his players during the timeout to rush the punter, as they promised they wouldn’t get a penalty.

Even after getting convinced, Coach says Fedora essentially only rushed two players.

No. 11, shown above, is coming from such an extreme angle on the end of the line that KU doesn’t need to worry about him.

“He’s coming from way too far outside,” Coach says. “There’s no way that guy’s every going to be able to block the punt.”

And though No. 7 appears to be rushing the punter on the bottom of the screen, he’s actually there for a different reason.

“He’s really probably just your scoop-and-score guy, just in case it does get blocked,” Coach says. “What I mean by ‘scoop and score’ is when it gets blocked, you scoop it up and score a touchdown, which he does.”

That leaves only No. 43 and No. 6 to be blocked in the middle by KU.

“They just sent a couple guys, and if you can get there — if one of KU’s guys doesn’t execute his assignment — go block the punt, and that’s essentially what happened,” Coach says.

Before finishing up, let’s take a look at two other players who also could have an impact on a punt being blocked: the punter and the long snapper.

Though sometimes punters are criticized for taking too long to get the punt off, Coach doesn’t see any problem with Rojas on this play.

“I don’t think he takes an excessive amount of time to get the punt off,” Coach says. “I don’t think that’s an issue at all, honestly.”

KU long snapper Justin Carnes gives an accurate snap to Rojas in this play, but Coach notices that a small improvement could be made.

“You see how the snap kind of takes an arc route? It’s not in exactly a straight line. That could also mean the snap doesn’t have a whole lot of speed on it,” Coach says. “That could be a little bit of an issue down the road if teams start to scheme them up and bring different styles of blocks to this punt formation.

“But in the end, that snap and what the punter does are all sufficient enough to get this punt off.”

Instead, it’s a missed assignment that ends up costing KU its second blocked punt of the season.