This is GameDay’s quick Q&A with a person on or connected to the Oregon football team. Josh Syria, the Ducks’ senior punter from Wenatchee, Wash., has punted all but one of the Ducks’ 36 punts this season for an average of 41.6 yards per kick, with 11 landing inside the 20-yard line. Coming from a family of golfers – his grandmother Pat still plays in Seattle and his cousin Nick Ellis plays for Washington State – Syria has recently picked up the game.
ODE: Isn’t coach Bellotti your position coach?
JS: Yeah, he kind of coaches the kickers and punters as far as techniques.
ODE: Have you ever had a punt-off with him? Does he ever kick with you?
JS: Oh, him? No. He’s way too old for that. I don’t even think he can lift his leg higher than his waist. He tries to give us some little demonstrations and just swing-throughs. It’s just like an older guy trying to show us something. We know what he’s talking about, but if you were just sitting on the sideline not knowing what he’s talking about you’d be like, ‘Uh, what’s that
guy doing?’.
ODE: What’s more important, hang time or distance?
JS: Hang time is probably more important. Coach wants us to have more. But we’ve got such a fast group of guys (defending punts) that it almost doesn’t matter.
ODE: I heard you are quite the driver on the golf course.
JS: I played three times before this last year, and then I played in March with some friends and I hit five drives and I had – I shot a 44 (for nine holes). I hit 280, 290, 205, 310 and 325 (yards) in March. I was out there just tattooing the ball. I kept going to Emerald Valley (Golf Course), and in the summer I went 10 or 15 times. I was out there a lot and I hit one that was 365. I just drilled it. It was a dog-leg right over the water and I almost hit it to the green. It was a bomb.
ODE: Have you ever thought about a long drive competition?
JS: Some other people would have to see me and I’ve got some consistency issues. When I slice it, it goes. I have a really bad slice, especially when I haven’t been practicing. I went the other day and I haven’t been since end of July and I was just slicing it so bad.
ODE: What do you need to work on in your game?
JS: My main thing is my drive. I can hit everything else. I was banging my three-wood. I was going like 225, 250. It was like, ‘Oh I’ll pull it out’ and it’d be, like, 100 yards past the 150 yard marker and be somewhere around the green. It wouldn’t be on the green, but it’d be left and right.
ODE: Any other golfers on the team?
JS: I went with (Michael) DiVincenzo a couple times and he’s pretty good. I don’t think I’ve gone with anybody else. Actually, I went with (Matt) Evensen one time too, and he hits the ball a long way. He’s got a lot of power.
ODE: Are you going to play in the annual tournament Mike Bellotti puts on?
JS: I’d have to see when it is. That would be fun. But I’ve never been coached. My grandpa showed me a few things, but I pretty much took after the Tiger Woods game. I was all arms before and trying to hit it with my arms, but when I saw he was using the hip in the game I was just ‘boom’ and crushing the ball. It was going so much more straight.
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