You're essentially trying to turn a kick off into a punt with a very high, accurately placed ball in the corner that gets a bunch of angry men down field with bad intentions capable of stuffing the other team immediately or even better, creating a turnover. We've been pretty successful at doing exactly that.

On the first kick off, it actually was not very high and went about 4 yards deep. As a result, the returner was able to build up a nice head of steam and find the seam before our angry men with bad intentions got down field. It didn't work. At that point, I think he was was told just boot it deep.

When we got the celebration penalty, they used a similar tactic in kicking it higher and shorter and it actually caught Virginia off guard. It was fielded by an up guy and we ended up far better than we had any right to. It was a good strategy.

If you can be guaranteed that the ball will go out of the end zone every time, it's probably the safe bet. We don't have that...not even really at altitude. Mikkelson can get it pretty deep, but he's not going to do what VA's kicker did. In that case, the risk v. reward is probably best to try and pin them in the corner and look for good coverage or a turnover. I doubt we try kicking deep much on the road because I don't think any of the kickers can get it deep enough to prevent a return at low altitude.