[NU Sports] kickers

[Jonathan Hodges]

Huffman was exclusively a punter (quite a good one... one of the best
in the conference) until our kicker-to-be Slade Larscheid went down
with a broken leg (coincidentally Slade is now the backup punter). 
Usually in high school you have kickers (like our current star
recruit) who both punt and place kick while in college they separate
out and specialize in one or the other (although there are special
circumstances such as injury.. or Weatherford down at Illinois who was
an excellent punter but also did kickoffs).  I guess you just have to
pick the right thing for them to do, which NU doesnt seem to have had
good luck at recently.

Jonathan

On 1/3/06, Michael Vance <michael.vance at att.net> wrote:
> At 1/3/2006 05:44 PM, Jim Leonard wrote:
> >All,
> >
> >I understand why large & fast defensive linemen might be hard to recruit to an
> >academic school like Northwestern. But why is it so hard to get good kickers?
> >
> >Most kickers don't fall into the classic "jock" mold. This country has to be
> >loaded with great kickers (place, punt, and kickoff) who have an academic mind
> >and would love a free Northwestern education. Why has it been so hard for
> >Northwestern to recruit these guys?
>
> The thing is that we have recruited good kickers.  Brian Huffman, who was
> the starting kicker when our current place kicking woes began, was a total
> stud in high school.  He kicked something like five game-winners and had
> three kicks of 50+ yards in his career at Schaumburg, which is unheard of
> at the high school level.  But he somehow lost his consistency early in
> college and ended his career as a slightly better-than-average punter.
>
> -Michael
>
> _______________________________________________
> nwu-sports site list
> nwu-sports at tssi.com
> http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports
>


--
Jonathan W. Hodges
829 Foster St. Apt. 401
Evanston, IL  60201-3259
(847) 736-2449
jonathanwhodges at gmail.com
http://jhodges.org