Interesting quote about the college kicking game:
But some high-profile misses combined with the effects of social media have fueled the perception that college kickers are unreliable or that coaches at certain programs don’t place much emphasis on recruiting elite kickers.
That’s not the case, according to Chris Sailer, a former All-American at UCLA who now runs kicking camps all over the country under his name. The problem, he said, is that most schools don’t have a coach on staff who specializes in kicking technique, which means often they don’t know what to look for. And given the 85-scholarship limit in FBS, meaning only a few will be devoted to specialists, the margin for error in recruiting is thin.
“Some schools will rely on walk-ons or only scholarship one kid every five years, but I see things changing,” Sailer said. “Coaches are giving more scholarships (to kickers), creating more competition and recruiting guys to redshirt if they have a senior on the roster. The schools that do it right are definitely reaping the rewards.”
Georgia appears to be on both sides of the divide. There isn’t a coach on staff who specializes in kicking technique. (Or at least no one’s willing to admit it.) On the other hand, though, Richt certainly hasn’t been shy about having multiple kickers on scholarship, or, most recently, recruiting a kid as a preferred walk-on pending Marshall Morgan’s graduation. Is that enough?
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Still don’t understand why we can’t have Butler as an unpaid volunteer a la Coach Hartman. Butler has the time and would be a great assert.
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Ain’t legal. At the end of his coaching career, Bill Hartman went back to graduate school so he could be counted by the NCAA as a GA.
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Wow, that always makes me think about the column Lewis wrote, “Son, why you are named Kevin.” Was at that Game. CF will never be wonderful like that again. 😪
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I heard Butler on the radio say that Vince called him a “kickball” player when he recruited him.
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Our kickers have been very good for decades. Seems to me if you don’t mess with their heads (by asking them to do pooch/directional kicks or some other dumb shit), they’ll generally do a pretty good job with little coaching.
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Right on Westy. Either give ’em a ST coach so they learn to do different things or leave ’em alone and just tell ’em to kick it. But don’t tell ’em to “Go to the other end of the practice field and we’ll see ya after practice,” then on gameday ask ’em to do something different than what they have been doing on their own–like pooch it, directional kick it, etc. How about “Just kick it down the middle as hard and as far as you can.” Every time!
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