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LINCOLN - It might have gone unnoticed by the untrained eye, but that description hardly fits Evan Arapostathis and Lance Ortega.
NU's Jordan Congdon, hoisted by teammates Sam Koch, No. 37, and Barry Turner, hit a school-record 19 field goals last season.
So they noticed.
When Nebraska kicker Jordan Congdon returned to San Diego and rejoined his old mentors for a few weeks, they saw a little more oomph on his kicks. And, more importantly, the same old accuracy to go with that better distance and height.
"If you looked closely, it was maybe three or four feet higher, and two, three, four yards longer," said Ortega, co-director of the San Diego School of Football. "You could project that all along with him, but what we always told Jordan was you can't add five yards overnight. He was going to have to go a yard or a half-yard at a time."
If there was a knock on Congdon last season, it was that he didn't yet have that thunderbolt for a right leg. He made an impressive 19 of 23 field goals as a freshman, but his longest was 41 yards and NU usually tried others on kickoffs.
Congdon spent the offseason addressing that issue with continued work in the weight room and simple maturation. He was pleased to get the approval of Arapostathis and Ortega in May.
"That was a big step I needed to make," Congdon said, "so just hearing that from those two guys was something I knew would help get me right for the summer."
His whole process blows away any myth that kickers don't, or won't, travel the same lengths as every-down players in football.
Congdon has been spending 90 minutes to two hours a day in the weight room. Along with adding some weight - getting into the 175- to 180-pound range - he proudly says he's lowered his body fat by 3 percent.
"Guys will kid me when I'm doing extra upper-body stuff, like, 'You're a kicker, you don't need your upper body,' " Congdon said. "But I'm staying longer to do more, just because of what I aspire to do. The way I think about it, God has given me a gift and I've got to be able to do everything possible to take advantage of it."
Ortega saw it when Congdon came home.
"The change in him physically was the most observable," Ortega said. "He's bigger in the legs, bigger in the shoulders . . . he's just growing. He's not the 14- or 15-year-old kid we once had."
Congdon was almost a little self-conscious last season when he saw some other Big 12 kickers, led by 6-foot-2, 210-pound All-American Mason Crosby of Colorado. Nearly all of Congdon's misses, he said, came when he was kicking into the wind and trying to put a little extra something into it.
But Congdon started feeling a little extra pop in his foot during spring practice, something NU head coach Bill Callahan also told him before the spring semester ended and he went home for a few weeks.
"If I'm stronger, I can just trust in my technique and be confident I can kick the same way no matter the conditions," Congdon said. "When you're trying to put too much into it, the tendency is to open your hips and then you pull it. Those first few games, when I missed those first three field goals, I probably did it on every one of those."
He did nothing but gain respect from Husker teammates over the rest of the season, making 13 of his last 14 field goals to land freshman All-American honors from the Football Writers Association of America and ESPN.com. With 19 overall, he broke Kris Brown's single-season school record (18 in 1997). No kick was bigger than the 40-yarder with 1:05 left against Kansas State - into a nasty wind - that started the Huskers' three-game winning streak to finish the season.
Congdon just never felt like it was right to sit on what he accomplished. Ortega said that included the time he was back in San Diego, when the opportunity was there to sit around or to find something more desirable to do than work out.
"When he was here, he was lifting, running, going to yoga - all those other things that make you successful," Ortega said. "He knows that putting his foot to the ball is only a sliver of what he does."
LINCOLN - It might have gone unnoticed by the untrained eye, but that description hardly fits Evan Arapostathis and Lance Ortega.
NU's Jordan Congdon, hoisted by teammates Sam Koch, No. 37, and Barry Turner, hit a school-record 19 field goals last season.
So they noticed.
When Nebraska kicker Jordan Congdon returned to San Diego and rejoined his old mentors for a few weeks, they saw a little more oomph on his kicks. And, more importantly, the same old accuracy to go with that better distance and height.
"If you looked closely, it was maybe three or four feet higher, and two, three, four yards longer," said Ortega, co-director of the San Diego School of Football. "You could project that all along with him, but what we always told Jordan was you can't add five yards overnight. He was going to have to go a yard or a half-yard at a time."
If there was a knock on Congdon last season, it was that he didn't yet have that thunderbolt for a right leg. He made an impressive 19 of 23 field goals as a freshman, but his longest was 41 yards and NU usually tried others on kickoffs.
Congdon spent the offseason addressing that issue with continued work in the weight room and simple maturation. He was pleased to get the approval of Arapostathis and Ortega in May.
"That was a big step I needed to make," Congdon said, "so just hearing that from those two guys was something I knew would help get me right for the summer."
His whole process blows away any myth that kickers don't, or won't, travel the same lengths as every-down players in football.
Congdon has been spending 90 minutes to two hours a day in the weight room. Along with adding some weight - getting into the 175- to 180-pound range - he proudly says he's lowered his body fat by 3 percent.
"Guys will kid me when I'm doing extra upper-body stuff, like, 'You're a kicker, you don't need your upper body,' " Congdon said. "But I'm staying longer to do more, just because of what I aspire to do. The way I think about it, God has given me a gift and I've got to be able to do everything possible to take advantage of it."
Ortega saw it when Congdon came home.
"The change in him physically was the most observable," Ortega said. "He's bigger in the legs, bigger in the shoulders . . . he's just growing. He's not the 14- or 15-year-old kid we once had."
Congdon was almost a little self-conscious last season when he saw some other Big 12 kickers, led by 6-foot-2, 210-pound All-American Mason Crosby of Colorado. Nearly all of Congdon's misses, he said, came when he was kicking into the wind and trying to put a little extra something into it.
But Congdon started feeling a little extra pop in his foot during spring practice, something NU head coach Bill Callahan also told him before the spring semester ended and he went home for a few weeks.
"If I'm stronger, I can just trust in my technique and be confident I can kick the same way no matter the conditions," Congdon said. "When you're trying to put too much into it, the tendency is to open your hips and then you pull it. Those first few games, when I missed those first three field goals, I probably did it on every one of those."
He did nothing but gain respect from Husker teammates over the rest of the season, making 13 of his last 14 field goals to land freshman All-American honors from the Football Writers Association of America and ESPN.com. With 19 overall, he broke Kris Brown's single-season school record (18 in 1997). No kick was bigger than the 40-yarder with 1:05 left against Kansas State - into a nasty wind - that started the Huskers' three-game winning streak to finish the season.
Congdon just never felt like it was right to sit on what he accomplished. Ortega said that included the time he was back in San Diego, when the opportunity was there to sit around or to find something more desirable to do than work out.
"When he was here, he was lifting, running, going to yoga - all those other things that make you successful," Ortega said. "He knows that putting his foot to the ball is only a sliver of what he does."
