Recent History of Husker Scholarship Kicker Recruits

[Mavric]

And within the last couple decades, Nebraska has regularly brought kickers in on scholarship, though the results are mixed (as is the case with recruits at every position). Nebraska has had 13 players attempt at least one field goal since the 1996 season — eight of them began their careers on scholarship.

Among the positives is current starter Drew Brown. He was a member of the 2014 recruiting class and has connected on 75.8 percent (47 of 62) of his field goal attempts. Kris Brown and Josh Brown, who both went on to long NFL careers, also began their Nebraska careers on scholarship.

But the practice hasn’t always worked out.

Sandro DeAngelis was signed to a scholarship in 2001 but attempted only 15 field goals in his career, making seven of them. David Dyches was another scholarship kicker coming out of high school, but he lost the job his second year in Lincoln and eventually transferred. So too did Jordan Congdon, a high school All-American who made 24 of 30 field goals in two seasons but left Nebraska for family reasons.

Others like Mauro Bondi and Adi Kunalic were signed to scholarships but combined to attempt three field goals in their careers. Both were kickoff specialists, though, during their time in Lincoln.

OWH

 

[84HuskerLaw]

Granting scholarships to kickers, for NU, has been a very wise strategy. So many schools find walkons and often live with mediocre results. The article mentions Jordon Congdon and seems to be suggesting that making 24 of 30 is somehow not a successful use of a scholarship. Those aren't bad numbers. The article doesn't seem to indicate why some didn't end up kicking much or left. Perhaps it was because he was beaten out by another kicker. I would suggest that, in general, Nebraska has been a 'top ten' team when it comes to kickers having had both excellent punters and place kickers through the past 5 decades. Not every year, of course, but in probably 80% of those 50 years, we've had one of the best in the conference, if not THEE best, and one of the ten or fifteen best in the nation,. This is critical to building and maintaining so many 9 plus win seasons. The kicking game is almost one third of the team and far too many people fail to realize the importance of kicking in deciding who wins. Winning the battle of field position is critical to sustained success. Having the best punter and field goal kickers is worth 17 points a game in my opinion, perhaps more in bad weather conditions.

The return game is also important and again is often overlooked in the post game analysis. How well the punter did is not glamorous but it is extremely important nonetheless. I think a top notch kicker is perhaps second most important, in considering the team's strength, besides the QB spot. Some coaches seem to think that kickers are a dime a dozen and why so few seem to award scholarships, preferring to take several walk ons and hope for one to turn out. Punters can save the day with a kick in the coffin corner just when you need one or a booming monster that gets past the returner and changes the field position dramatically. And, a bad punt can shift momentum as we saw several times last fall with Caleb. But, I expect he will start to earn that scholie this fall and turn out to be a valuable part of the success, whatever it may be, this coming team finds. He seemed nervous and perhaps the lack of confidence in an O line to protect him, contributed. He has had some good punts and those should be more regular as time goes by. The Browns and many others have been reliable scorers and we've usually had plenty of comfort in putting our kicker out there in those nail biting moments when the field goal puts us in position to win.