A football practice is much like an actual football game. Instead of facing off as a whole team, however, the squad splits up on the practice field, and coaches bark out staccato instructions as a means to hype up players running through sometimes bizarre-looking drills.
However, one thing is the same between drills during the week and games on Saturday afternoons: The punters and kickers are out there, looking slightly bored.
As the wide receivers run routes, catching bullet passes from the quarterbacks in red jerseys, the kickers run stairs. As the linemen hit tackling dummies or perform tackling drills, the kickers do calisthenics and stretches to stay loose.
The kickers and punters only have one thing to worry about: sending a kick through the uprights, or hanging a deep punt for the cover team. Simple, right?
“If we do our job right, it should be the most boring 10 seconds of the game each time we go out there,” junior punter Josh Syria said.
But it apparently was not so for Oregon last season, judging by the Ducks’ special teams struggles throughout. Oregon finished eighth in the Pacific-10 Conference for field-goal percentage, seventh in punting average, and last in total punting yardage.
And if it’s not the statistics, it’s the stories: of Matt Dragich’s 9-yard punt in the second half against Arizona State, and of Paul Martinez and junior Matt Evensen’s 0-for-3 game against Oregon State.
The team clearly has a problem to solve. It falls on Syria and a crew of kickers, including Evensen, senior Luke Bellotti and sophomore Morgan Flint, to make strides and improve on this boring yet crucial aspect of football.
With the increased intensity noted in practices this spring comes a focus on dealing with the punt coverage issue.
“We’ve pretty much been doing punting everyday. We took Tuesday off and that was the first day off since we started spring ball,” Syria said. “I’ve enjoyed it. It’s the only team I’m on, so I’d like to get my work in and get everybody rolling.”
It takes more than just one player to make the kick coverage work, and as Syria has worked on getting his part of the punt coverage – the actual kick itself – “above about a four, four and a half second hangtime,” which is optimal, it also takes “some of the best athletes on the team” to make the coverage work.
As for the field-goal kickers, they have been hard at work as well. While Evensen is in the lead for the job, it could go to any of the Ducks’ three kickers, and just like with the punting unit, it’s as much about the blockers and the snapper as it is the man swinging his leg.
It’s all about working hard to perfect something simple. Or, as Syria puts it, “Our job is to do what the coaches want. Make it so that the other ten guys don’t really have to do anything else.”
Notes from practice
Practices continued to be run at a high-energy, up-tempo pace that has been set by coach Bellotti and his staff so far this spring. Drills have alternated with quick scrimmages that last approximately five minutes.
Jonathan Stewart has continually impressed, turning ordinary middle hand-offs during the scrimmages into twenty-yard breakout runs that elicited oohs and ahhs from teammates gathered on the sidelines.
Both Dennis Dixon and Brady Leaf have looked sharp at quarterback, with Dixon dropping an especially nice 20-yard pass to senior wide receiver Brian Paysinger during scrimmage that Paysinger dragged in from his shoestrings. After the scrimmage was whistled, Dixon walked down the sideline, helmet off and smile on his face, and slapped hands with Paysinger.
Nathan Costa, a freshman who saw limited playing time last season, has also looked very sharp during practices.
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