Here’s a weird little quirk of the SEC rosters: over half of the SEC had a senior punter last year. On top of that, the two best kickers in the SEC, and maybe the nation, both left for the NFL. There is a huge turnover in the special teams this season, which makes it hard to rate the units.
What does not graduate is the coverage teams. Kicking and punting are of course huge parts of special teams play, but another huge part is those coverage units. And those units stay fairly consistent over the years. So we’re primarily looking at the field goal kickers and coverage units, as nearly everyone is replacing their punter.