The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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is now from when he first saw him in the spring. PUNTING GAME AS EXPECTED O'Neill, meanwhile, has been ex- actly what Baxter and Harbaugh had in mind when they brought him in as a graduate transfer from Weber State. O'Neill averaged 44.1 yards per punt with a long of 74 yards last year, and through three games at U-M he aver- aged 40.9 yards on 11 punts despite shanking a 15-yarder in a 28-7 win over UNLV. His expertise was on full display on the first punt of his Michigan career. At Utah, O'Neill delayed near midfield until his coverage was downfield, and then put the ball inside the 5-yard line, where junior safety Dymonte Thomas caught it on the fly at the 3-yard line. He did the same thing again against UNLV. Baxter has added plenty to his arse- nal, O'Neill praised. "It's basically just reading the de- fense and seeing what they bring," O'Neill said. "And it's about trying to let my guys get down there, and Dymonte did. We just treat it like Aus- tralian football, where you're kicking for a mark, and it's great to see those guys make a play around their own goal line. It's unreal." Baxter said before the season started that O'Neill's skill punting was as good as he's seen. The coach said his pupil can hit "all four panels on the ball," bend it either way and essen- tially put the ball where he wants to. The Aussie way of playing catch is to kick the ball back and forth to one another, and O'Neill has perfected it. He did admit it took him about six months to get comfortable at American pro-style punting at ProKick Academy in Australia, but he can do that as well as rugby style. "If I go between pro-style and back to Aussie punting, there's still a little transition there where you have to stop, check yourself and say, 'Oh, that's a different type of kick' and get in that groove," he said. His coverage team adjusted very well between weeks one and two, he added. "It's been great to see the guys prog- ress from what was a pro-style set-up last year to a roll-type protection," he said. "They've gone at it with absolute vigor and taken to their roles." Baxter, too, has been a huge plus. "We work pretty extensively, whether it's how to scheme something or the punting position in general," he said. "If you look back in history, it's always been a pretty much tradi- tional position. But Coach Baxter 's very much into the idea that you can be a little bit more than that. You can try different things and really mix it up, and you see that on all the special teams in his approach." RETURN AND COVERAGE TEAMS SHOW POTENTIAL Redshirt freshman Jabrill Peppers was the odds-on favorite to handle re- turn duties, and he was back there in the first three games. Though he hadn't had many opportunities through two games — only four punt returns for 38 yards and three kick returns for 78 — he came out of the end zone at Utah for an explosive, 36-yard return that gave