Who Needs a Punter? Pulaski Doesn’t

How many times in your life have you witnessed your squad send out the punt unit instead of going for it on a manageable 4th and two? Isn’t it a lot more enjoyable to roll out the huge ones and go for it instead of always living your life with prunes and punting? You go for it on Madden or NCAA College Football. Why don’t more teams do it in real life?

One team does. That team is Pulaski Academy, one of Little Rock, Arkansas’ finest prep schools. The Pulaski Academy Bruins do not punt and the straitpinkie.com squad absolutely loves it.

“We haven’t punted any this year and we won’t punt this year.” said head coach Kevin Kelley.

When middle linebacker Andrew Newell was asked who the Bruins’ punter was, he struggled to answer. “I can not with 100-percent certainty say who our punter is or who it would be in that case.”

Does the no punt strategy work? Well, Kelley was named head coach prior to the 2003 season. The Bruins are 66-13-1 since he took the helm. They have won one 5A state championship and played in two other state finals.

What if it is 4th and 15 from their own 20-yard line? Pulaski will surely pull a kicker for the crowd and punt it away. Right?

“There is no time that we will ever hesitate trying to go for it on fourth down,” says defensive coordinator Tom Wood. “Last year we went for it on fourth and four on our own five (yard line). We didn’t make it, so on the next play they scored. But, we came back and won the ballgame. I’ve seen us go for it on 4th down and two, 4th down and 15. It doesn’t matter about clock, position on the field. We’ll do it anytime, anywhere, any place.”

Kelley equates his team’s no punt strategy squarely on numbers. He has found that if his team goes for it from inside their own five yard line and doesn’t get it, their opponent will score 92-percent of the time. If they punt it away from inside the five and their opponent gets the ball at the 30 yard line, they will score 77-percent of the time. That is only a 15-percent difference. “From everything thing I’ve seen it says do not punt. Period,” said Kelley. “I know when I go into a game, do not punt.”

“If we had been conditioned differently in the game of football,” said Kelley. “Let’s say hypothetically that nobody has ever punted the football. And we didn’t even know what a punt was. All the sudden someone came up with this thing where they dropped back and kicked the ball. Everybody would be looking and going that guy is crazy. He is only using three of his four downs. He is letting the other team have the ball. He is just giving it to them.”

This season Pulaski Academy is 11-1 and they just crushed Beebe in the State Quarterfinals. Huge ones versus Beebes…yeah that squad had no chance. On Friday the Bruins face Greenwood, the defending state champs. Greenwood defeated Pulaski in the quarters last season, 57-50.

So on Friday after you have grubbed on your Tinksgiving turkey make sure you cheer on Coach Kelley’s Pulaski Academy Bruins, as they look to avenge last season’s loss to Greenwood. We will chronicle all of the action here at straitpinkie.com.

Go Bruins!

https://www.pulaskiacademy.org/podium/default.aspx?t=40984&rc=1