Iowa and Nebraska have punts go horribly wrong (Video)

Two Big Ten West punters had a rough time during the first half of their respective games Saturday night.

With Iowa hanging tough against No. 3 Michigan, Hawkeyes punter Ron Coluzzi was ready to punt it back to the Wolverines on fourth-and-9, but the snap came in high. With several Michigan defenders closing, Coluzzi tucked the ball and ran left with open field ahead of him. Things didn’t go well from there:

Instead of possibly picking up a first down, Coluzzi tripped over his own feet and took a hit from Michigan’s Devin Bush. Here’s another look:

Bush was ejected for targeting on the play, but Iowa still turned it over on downs because it was deemed a dead-ball foul. The gaffe gave the Wolverines good field position and they capitalized with a field goal.

It wasn’t the last we’d hear from Coluzzi in the first half. Michigan was flagged for running into Coluzzi on consecutive plays — first a fourth-and-10, and then a fourth-and-5 — to give the Hawkeyes an unusual first down.

Meanwhile in Lincoln, Nebraska’s Caleb Lightbourn gave us the rare backwards punt. Well, sort of. He kicked it forward, but way up in the air. When the ball finally landed on the Memorial Stadium turf, it took a huge bounce back toward the line of scrimmage and was officially put in the books as a minus-two yard punt. Yes, really.

That bad bounce gave Minnesota great field position. The Gophers were able to capitalize by adding a field goal to take a 17-10 lead before halftime.

Lightbourn’s other first half punt went for 44 yards and he was averaging 40.3 yards per punt entering Saturday night’s game, so his poor punt was something of an anomaly.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

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