Friday, August 14, 1998

VonAppen
‘relegated’ to UH’s
special teams

Hawaii's head coach is intent on
improving the team's woeful
'97 showing in that department

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

You have to know a little history of Fred vonAppen to fully appreciate how serious the University of Hawaii head football coach is about correcting certain problems on special teams.

VonAppen was responsible for the kicking game during four of his six seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. Under the watchful eye of 49ers head coach Bill Walsh, vonAppen designed several successful strategies.

He also developed a dislike of coaching special teams, something that has stuck with him since leaving the 49ers a decade ago. VonAppen wasn't concerned who handled those duties, just as long as it wasn't him.

But all that changed over the summer.

"I talked with different coaches and came up with some punt-blocking and punt-return schemes from places like Nebraska and showed them to Fred," UH assistant coach Don Dillon said. "He looked at them, but he decided to stick with what they did while he was with the 49ers.

"I'm the coach responsible for the punting game this year, but sometimes Fred can't help himself. He can explain it better than I can because he has designed all these vectors and sectors the players are supposed to be in. You gotta love the guy."

Despite his aversion for special teams, vonAppen seems to be enjoying himself. As head coach, he doesn't have many opportunities to be hands on. But that has changed in these early days of fall camp.

The Rainbows work specifically on the punting phase during the last part of practice. You can find vonAppen in the middle of the masses, positioning linemen and instructing punter Chad Shrout how to handle a directional kick.

"It's something I had to buy into because I've never really kicked this way," Shrout said. "I know how to kick deep, now I have to learn how to kick it in certain directions. I'm not comfortable yet, but I will be by the start of the season."

Last year, Shrout finished fifth in the nation in punting, averaging 46.1 yards on 68 punts, including a long of 71 yards. But on the down side, he had five blocked punts, teams returned six punts for touchdowns and the Rainbows were 94th out of 112 Division I teams in net punting.

Hawaii yielded a staggering 639 yards on 36 punt returns. The Rainbows' net punting average was 33.9 yards. They were 14th in the Western Athletic Conference, finishing nearly 9 yards a kick behind front-running Wyoming (42.8 yards). Cowboys punter Aron Langley was second in the league to Shrout with a 45.2-yard average.

That is the kind of relationship between gross and net punting vonAppen is looking for this season.

"We've started all over in our designs and schemes," vonAppen said. "We're trying to get the best players we can. Chad is doing really well. We're trying to do a better job of vectoring his ball where we can cover it better.

"We're also working on kicking the ball out of bounds to eliminate returns. Our biggest concern is getting it off. He's 14 to 15 yards behind center. It depends on the circumstances. And we're still looking at the young centers."

VonAppen has several young players trying to fill the shoes of deep snapper Tyler Tanigawa, who graduated last year. The top two are freshman offensive linemen Lui Fuata and Brian Smith. Both are walk-ons.

"Both of those guys can get it back there quickly," Dillon said of their snap time of 0.8 seconds. ''That should give Chad ample time to get off the kick.''

Returning kicks is the other phase of special teams vonAppen studied over the summer. VonAppen and former UH return man Eddie Klaneski are working with junior college transfer Dwight Carter, former Stanford speedster Jauron Pigg, Texan James Polk, defensive back Phil Austin and senior receiver Eleu Kane, who also is handling kickoff returns.

"We have to improve our return average over a year ago," vonAppen said. The Rainbows averaged a respectable 10.3 yards, including a long of 52 by Klaneski. "It's still too early to say where we're at, but we will be better than we were a year ago."