[NU Sports] kickers

[Jeff Beamsley]

The kickers last night just missed.  If the aim had been better, they had
all of the other components of a successful kick.  Our kicker's problem
wasn't aim. It was elevation, so it was a much more fundamental issue of
execution.  

As far as recruiting is concerned, IMHO NU should be able to recruit good
kickers in the same way that we should be able recruit good players in every
other aspect of the game.  Just a matter of priority and execution.  Even
the best schools sometimes have a year or two when special teams may
struggle because a kicking recruit doesn't pan out, but special teams have
been a consistent (there's that word again) enough problem at NU that it
can't be explained away by the failure of an individual athlete to live up
to their potential.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of John Labbe
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 2:19 AM
To: 'nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com'
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] kickers

Funny that we were criticizing Walker today for an inability to recruit
kickers, when in tonight's game, two of the best college coaches of all time
had their kickers combine to miss four consecutive possibly-game-winning
field goals (and one kicker missed an extra point earlier in the game).

I think there's a lot of luck in getting a great kicker.  How many
scholarships can you afford to burn on kickers?  Then what if your recruit
doesn't work out as you hoped as is often the case with many players, or
what if your recruit gets injured.  Is it no coincidence that many good
kickers have been walk-ons?




On Jan 3, 2006, at 9:27 PM, Michael Vance 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
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