Practice yields big returns

ASU Corner Back Blaise Taylor poses for a portrait during Arkansas State Football Media Day at Centennial Bank Stadium in Jonesboro Friday, July 28, 2017.
ASU Corner Back Blaise Taylor poses for a portrait during Arkansas State Football Media Day at Centennial Bank Stadium in Jonesboro Friday, July 28, 2017.

JONESBORO -- On a fall morning in New Orleans, Trooper Taylor took his 6-year-old son to work.

Taylor, Tulane's wide receivers coach from 1999-2003, recalls that he hardly ever got to spend time with his son, Blaise, who was usually asleep when he left early for work and returned late.

Up next

ARKANSAS STATE VS.

LOUISIANA-LAFAYETTE

WHEN Tonight, 6:30

WHERE Centennial Bank Stadium, Jonesboro

RECORDS Arkansas State 3-2, 2-0 Sun Belt; Louisiana-Lafayette 3-3, 2-1

TV ESPNU

INTERNET ESPN3

In an attempt to spend more time with his son, Taylor began the training of the most successful punt returner in the history of Arkansas State University.

Young Blaise stayed close to his father's side on the Tulane practice field, until they stood on the sideline as footballs pelted the turf a few yards away while the punters practiced.

Another ball bounced, and Blaise ran out and gathered it from the ground.

"That's not how it works," teased Trooper, who finished his playing career as Baylor's leader in kickoff return yardage (1,063). "You've got to catch it in the air."

A punter booted the next ball, Blaise scuttled beneath its shadow and caught it square in his tiny chest.

"That's pretty good," Trooper said, a bit baffled.

Blaise continued to catch punts -- sometimes catching them, sometimes not.

"There were a couple of times when he took one off the face and bloodied his nose," Trooper said recently. "Had to put gauze, toilet paper, Kleenex up in there to clean him up so momma wouldn't know. And then his eyes started to blacken, and she figured it out anyway. It just became something that he and I shared."

As Trooper moved for jobs to Tennessee and Oklahoma State, Blaise fielded punts at practices like baseball pop flies.

"I probably didn't realize it," Blaise said Monday. "But I ended up being their shag guy."

Blaise, now a senior cornerback at ASU, is tied for 25th all-time with four career punt return touchdowns -- one more than Heisman trophy winners Reggie Bush, Tim Brown and Barry Sanders.

"He's had touchdowns in every year of his career," ASU Coach Blake Anderson said Monday, regarding the 51-17 victory over Coastal Carolina in which Taylor returned two punts for 78 yards. "He was close to getting another one the other night."

Since that first catch on the Tulane practice field, Blaise's 20-20 vision has adapted to the return game's high speeds like a bird that's spent its life avoiding tree limbs.

"The big thing is, you see a lot of color," he said. "So you just try to run off the color. If we're wearing black and they're in white, you just try to avoid the white. 'Cause as soon as you catch it, you kind of get a quick scan and then you gotta go."

What about a night of confusing jersey combinations?

"Not really," Blaise said. "Because when people are moving fast, you can definitely tell, and you can also see helmets and things like that. Sometimes, when you get a lot of room, then it really slows down. But if it's a bang-bang play, where you catch it and someone's right there, then you really just see a flash of color."

Once he enters the fray of jerseys, sometimes it will be blurs of white, color, white, white ... then green.

"It's something you really don't know until you get close to the end zone, when you can see the end zone and see one or two guys left," he said.

Blaise and his father talk often about the craft, and over the years they've established two truths: One sideways move after he makes his break could be an ear-hole shot from a defender, and he should call a fair catch if he runs 15 yards toward oncoming defenders to receive a punt.

"There's a difference between being brave and not being very smart," Trooper said. "He's the one taking those blows if he makes a bad decision."

Last season, Blaise fielded a punt after running more than 15 yards and ended up getting clouted by a 300-pound lineman. He played through a hurt shoulder for the rest of the season, had surgery and missed spring practice while recovering.

"That educated him on the decisions," Trooper said. "That 1 yard, that's not worth not having him back there."

Taylor entered the season as ASU's career leader in punt return yardage, which he has extended to 975 yards entering tonight's 6:30 game against Louisiana-Lafayette at Centennial Bank Stadium.

His four career punt return touchdowns are the most in school history, and if he weren't tackled by the Coastal Carolina punter after a 50-yard return Saturday, he would have had five.

Trooper said he gave Blaise a hard time for not getting the touchdown, and then Blaise returned the next day with a video recording of Trooper fumbling a punt return for Baylor and then getting "knocked out" by a Houston defender.

"I forgot we live in the age of Google," Trooper said. "I don't know how many games he had to look through to find where I got blown up, but he taught me if you live in a glass house, don't throw no stones."

Sports on 10/19/2017

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