LSU punters make positive impact on game

• By SCOTT HOTARD
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 8, 2009

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Even in a losing effort, LSU coach Les Miles rolled out a signature phrase following Saturday’s game.

He used it to describe his punters.

“I think the punting that was done today was damn strong,” Miles said following No. 3 Alabama’s 24-15, come-from-behind victory.

Information in the boxscore backs it up.

Regular punter Derek Helton punted six times for 282 yards, an average of 47 yards per boot. He had a long of 53 yards.

Josh Jasper, the short-punt specialist, punted only twice for 91 yards. Each kick left Alabama to start a possession from its own 1-yard line.

“I thought it made a big impact on the game,” Helton said. “It’s just unfortunate we came up short.”

Helton’s punts came out high and long and, time and again, handcuffed Alabama senior Javier Arenas, the Southeastern Conference’s leader in punt-return yardage.

Arenas returned only four punts for 11 yards.

That’s called flipping field position. That’s the kind of thing that carries weight when teams like Alabama and LSU — with stingy defenses — jostle for short fields.

“That’s what a lot of the talk was all week,” Helton said. “We talked about how it was going to be a punting game pretty much and a game of field position.”

In a victory over Auburn two weeks ago, Helton suffered a hip flexor that limited him to holding for PATs and field goals the rest of the way. Ditto for Tulane last week.

In returning as the regular punter, Helton, a junior college transfer, turned in probably the best effort of his LSU career.