Special teams are the one unit on a football team you don’t want to underperform. There’s a reason they’re labeled “special,” after all. A missed kick cn be the difference between a victory and a loss, and a good punt can turn the game on its head.
Akron had one player doing both jobs in 2018, which was probably not an ideal situation for the Zips. Nick Gasser did the best he could do being asked to perform double duty, but with Akron’s offensive struggles (he punted 75 times) and tendency to be conservative on offense (22 attempts on field goals, including an astonising 11 attempts from 40-49 yards,) it was clear he was pretty tired at the end of the season, as he made only 72.