Henery poised to leave his mark at NU
3 comments so far
April 6, 2010 by Brandon Vogel
We all know that Alex Henery is good. If he'd done nothing more than kick that field goal against Colorado in 2008 his place in Husker lore would be secure but he has done more. Last year he was definitely Nebraska's offensive MVP despite not really playing offense. In his first season he was perfect (8-8 FG, 45-45 XP). What will it be this season?
A whole lot of record breaking.
Here are the kicking records Henery already holds. He's got the longest field goal in school history as mentioned above. He was the most accurate kicker of extra points (min. 80 attempts) heading into last season at 99.0% and he improved by going 38 of 38 to reach 99.2%. Henery holds the record for most consecutive field goals to start a career (12) and he's also the most accurate field goal kicker in school history as well at 87.7% (50-57).
So what's still on the board? Quite a bit, actually. With eight more made field goals in 2010, Henery will break Kris Brown's career record of 57 FGs. He'll best Brown again with 20 more field goal attempts. While Henery won't catch Brown in either extra points made (B: 217, H: 139) or attempted (B: 222, H: 140)--through no fault of his own--if he is perfect on XPs this season as he was in his freshman and junior seasons he'd be the first Husker to achieve the feat three times.
Then there's the big one. With 100 more points Henery would become the all-time leading scorer, beating out Brown by one point (389 to 388). In each of the past two seasons Henery has scored 110. Not bad for a walk-on, right?
But there's one more reward that might be fitting for Henery pending the outcome of 2010. How about the first kicker in Husker history to have his jersey retired? Nebraska's had some good ones but none of them have received the ultimate honor of having their jersey retired. Why?
Because kickers are a tough sell. The nature of the position means they're almost destined to lead the team in scoring year in and year out. Four kickers, Henery included, are on Nebraska's Top 10 list of career scorers. Scoring is line one on their job description, but as it stands now no one has done it better or more accurately than Henery.
Of course there's still another season to play and the point here is not to jump the gun. Rather, let's just keep in mind as we spend the spring searching for breakout scoring threats that we already have one.
Maybe the best one in school history.