As Oregon wrapped up practice shortly ahead of its encounter with TCU in the Alamo Bowl last season, head coach Mark Helfrich addressed his team.
“We don’t usually do this,” he said, “But anyone who was an All-American this year, come to the front.”
The Ducks’ three All-Americans, defensive end DeForest Buckner (second team), running back Royce Freeman (third team) and place kicker Aidan Schneider (third team), all rose and took their place at the front.
Helfrich turned to his team again.
“How many of these guys aren’t on scholarship?” Helfrich asked.
Everyone knew the answer: only one.
Schneider, a sophomore at the time, had walked on his freshman year. He was not under scholarship.
“The answer is zero,” Helfrich said.
The players, understanding what Helfrich was implying, lifted Schneider onto their shoulders and celebrated. He would no longer be a walk-on player.
As Schneider put it, “everyone went crazy.”
“It was amazing,” Schneider said of the experience.
It was Schneider’s consistency and success that earned him his scholarship. Now, as he heads into his junior year, Oregon is facing a season of uncertainty, little of which was dispelled after its 53-28 win over UC Davis last week. But Schneider hopes to build on his consistency and success and to eventually help the Ducks back to the College Football playoff, one kick at a time.
From goalposts to uprights
Schneider wasn’t always the dead ringer of a kicker he is now. Long before he began kicking footballs through uprights, he was an avid soccer player growing up in Portland. He started at a young age and played all the way up through high school.
“He was always very, very passionate about the game,” his high school soccer coach, Manolis Tjuanakis, said.
Tjuanakis first coached Schneider in middle school and again at Grant High School in Portland. He recalls Schneider lacked agility but made up for it with his sound technique, a strong foot and an innate ability to read the game.
When Schneider was a junior in high school, he tried out for the football team at Grant. The team’s kicker had quit unexpectedly and the captain of the team had suggested he come out. He would spend time after soccer practice kicking with the football team, but his commitment was always with soccer.
It wasn’t until he attended a summer camp that focused on special teams put on by Oregon — the June after his junior year — that Schneider realized his future was in football, not soccer.
Schneider tried out for Oregon in the fall of his freshman year, which came as a bit of a surprise to Tjuanakis.
“I thought it was a long shot for him to walk-on and make the team,” Tjuanakis said.
But Oregon special teams coach Tom Osborne felt differently.
“You could see right away, the first couple weeks here, that he had the unique ability and accuracy of kicking field goals,” Osborne said. “We were fortunate enough that he walked on.”
Learning Curve
The next step for Schneider was to refine his craft. Coming from soccer proved beneficial, but mastering field goal kicking at a Division I level was a bit more of a test.
“Having that background of kicking a ball is really helpful,” Schneider said. “But there’s still quite a learning curve once you get more advanced. The little details are what you have to master.”
For specialists — such as Schneider and long-snapper Tanner Carew — mastering the little details requires a certain approach. Working on a specific craft like field-goal kicking or long-snapping doesn’t always mean piling up the rep counts. As Carew put it, “It’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.”
“You don’t want to be out there kicking 100 balls a day, wearing your leg out,” Schneider said. “It’s about quality over quantity. Making sure you’re doing things the right way.”
So far, that approach has worked: having only missed three field goals in his tenure at Oregon is proof enough. His work ethic isn’t the only thing that makes Schneider the capable kicker he is. According to Osborne, it’s Schneider’s mindset that sets him apart.
“The thing with him that’s different than most guys is his mental toughness, his mental approach,” Osborne said. “Because he doesn’t let things bother him.”
For some guys, Osborne explained, if something goes wrong they usually want to overcompensate and that’s where things start to go even more downhill.
To Osborne, Schneider is special because, “He doesn’t overthink things.”
Before the Georgia State game last year, Schneider missed his last three field goal attempts during pre-game warm-up. But he didn’t let it phase him. He shook it off and ended up hitting a career-high four field goals, helping Oregon to a 61-28 victory.
Tools to do it
A walk-on player gaining a scholarship doesn’t happen often. Usually coaches will reward a walk-on a scholarship if the player is a standout or if they haven’t exhausted all their available scholarships yet. In Schneider’s case, it was the former.
“He earned it,” Osborne said. “We award guys scholarships if they have performed well enough to earn it.”
In his two years as a place kicker for the Ducks, Schneider has been the epitome of consistency.
His 31-yard field goal in the second quarter of Oregon’s opener last week gave him 34 for his career, which ties him with Paul Martinez for fifth most field goals in program history. He has the highest field goal percentage (91.8) of any kicker in program history (with over 10 attempts) and has only missed three times out of his 37 attempts. Last season, he led the team in scoring with 133 points, 19 ahead of Royce Freeman (114).
He only needs 15 more field goals to claim the title of most in program history. He’s off to a good start this year too, making his only attempt against UC Davis.
His goal when he arrived at Oregon was to become a scholarship player. Now that he has accomplished that, he has his eyes set on loftier goals: the pros.
His success at the collegiate level has been impressive enough to at least attract looks from pro teams. In reality, the odds aren’t exactly in his favor. But that hasn’t stopped Schneider before. After all, the slow-footed 6’5” soccer player left the sport he’s played his whole life and, not only made the roster of a Power Five football school as a walk-on, but became an All-American and earned a scholarship for his accomplishments.
With a solid season this year, he could cement himself as the best field goal kicker in Oregon history and dramatically improve his draft-stock.
Despite all the odds, Schneider’s success was not a surprise to Tjuanakis. He knows that Schneider is thinking about playing at the next level and has faith that he’ll get there.
“I know that if that was what he wanted to do, he’s very focused and he’ll do all the work to get it done,” Tjuanakis said. “If he set his mind to it, he has the tools to do it.”