You can never have enough of ’em.
Mitchell Wasson is coming to Georgia with an eye on winning the kicking job.
The Lassiter High senior committed to the Bulldogs as a preferred walk-on, he revealed on his Twitter account on Wednesday night.
A day after backing off a pledge to Alabama, Wasson accepted a chance to compete to be Georgia’s placekicker. He’ll join the mix with walk-ons Rodrigo Blankenship and William Ham as the Bulldogs seek a replacement for Marshall Morgan.
“I definitely feel like I could start right off the gate,” Wasson said on Tuesday.
Hey, who’s to say he’s wrong? If Blankenship was the slam dunk some believe him to be, I doubt we’d see the program coaxing a kid like Ham back or welcoming Wasson with eager arms.
Shane Beamer’s gonna be one busy dude come August.
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Semi-thread hijack…what happened with the kid that was waiting on test results before he committed to a school?
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He’s still short for Stanford, but is taking his last official visit, along with his family, to Athens this weekend.
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I don’t blame the guy. If I qualified and had money to go to Harvard, I will in a second. However, there is no fun there like the Dawgs.
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Agree. My neighbors kid is an Olympic quality track athlete, and she was recruited by every major D1 track program 2 years ago. She turned them all down to take a partial ride at Harvard. Smart move on her part, because she’ll be in the Olympics regardless, but that Harvard network opportunity was only going to present itself once.
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Harvard is great if your parents earn less than 150K or are hedge fund managing millionaires.
Those with families that are successful but not loaded end up paying full freight, which hurts.
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Other than the size of the opposition and arena, what’s the difference between kicking in high school and kicking in college? Why do kids like Blankenship tear it up in high school and then struggle in college?
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Could be speed on the defenders forcing them to kick slightly quicker, which would affect strength and accuracy of the kick.
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I would think it is speed, time, and coaching too. They repeat the same motion over and over for 3 or 4 years, you can practice as long as you want, and many have a personal coach whose attention is all on them. Then all of a sudden they have to do that exact same motion in 20% less time, with bigger dudes after them, over longer distances, and keep the same accuracy/consistency…without their personal coach, with less practice time allowed.
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Do high school kickers still kick PAT?FGs off a tee/block or do they kick off the ground?
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They can use a tee in high school. No tee in college for field goals, one-inch tee for kicking off in college.
And, yes, some kids have some difficulty making that adjustment, which should, if the kid is trained right, start in high school.
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Isn’t this kid on the Hope Scholarship? I think I saw that in another article. Who ever thought the Hope Scholarship would get UGA a key preferred walk on over Alabama?
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I think you’d be surprised about how many walk-ons, preferred or otherwise, we’ve had because of the Hope scholarship. Aside from football, the school in general has benefitted by bright kids staying in state. Of all the goofy things legislators have done in Georgia, I think it’s fair to say the lottery has not been one of them.
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Rex Robinson was his kicking coach for a while until the went with a national kicking coach. Red was excited he was coming.
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For a program that has been somewhat nonchalant about kickers and punters of late, had a punter with a bad back (or something) all this looks wonderful to me.
I hope Shane Beamer is gonna time hang time during practice, throw grass clippings up to test the wind and all that kicking coach stuff.
Oh MY GOD!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!
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Always. Be. Closing. Nice pickup in an area of need – and without sacrificing a scholly. Demonstrates that in-state kids prefer to remain in GA if we show them enough interest. And stealing a walk-on away from saban, no less! Nice job CKS & Co.
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Shane Beamer’s gonna be one busy dude come August.
Well, that’s refreshing.
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And now Kirby just got another Bama commit to flip to us in QB Jake Fromm. That’s two in one week. I’m not sure that’s happened since Saban came to Bama.
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Place kickers and punters are like golfers. As long as their head is in the game and their mechanics are right they can do it. However, as any golfer will tell you keeping all the moving parts of a kick(swing) going right is what makes golf(kicking) so damn frustrating. Exhibit A was Blair Walsh. He lost his consistency after 3 years of greatness and there was not one coach on our team that could whisper in his ear what was wrong. The Minnesota special teams coach said it took him 15 seconds to straighten him out. Still, as good as he was for them, he missed a chip shot for the win in the playoffs. Just remember that when you have a three foot putt to win a round.
The one thing any sports team needs is a good sports psychologist to deal with the mental aspect of the game.
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