Oregon place kicker Aidan Schneider nailed three field goals against California last Saturday, adding to his tally of 16 made this season (17 attempts). More importantly, his third make against California put him inside Oregon’s career top 10, passing Josh Frankel’s mark of 26 (1996-2000).
The Emerald caught up with Schneider to talk about how his game has been this season:
There have been some situations this season where Oregon typically would go for it in the past. Is it gratifying that they let you out there to get points on the board?
Yeah, anytime I get to kick I’m happy. I know the coaches always have the best interest of the team at heart. But if they call on me, I’m happy to go out there.
Where’s your confidence right now? Does it seem like you’re just kicking it and getting it done?
I’ve just been really confident all year. As the year has gone on, every kick you make in a game you get a success (repetition), you build on it.
Are you a type of guy, like a pitcher during a perfect game, where you don’t want to talk about success rate? 
No, I don’t mind talking about it. I know I should make pretty much every kick I go out and attempt, so it’s not something I’m superstitious about at all.
How good would you say your range is right now? 
I’d say I’m comfortable out to probably 54, 55 (yards out) as the top.
Last year you came on as a walk on, and this year you entered a little more established.  Did you change at all how you trained this summer? 
I was here over the summer, and I really just worked on changing my swing a little bit. There are a lot of things to fine tune from last year. I made a lot of kicks, but I wasn’t necessarily hitting the ball like I wanted to, so I changed the little stuff.
Do you consider yourself as a football player more after the last couple of years?
I still miss soccer and think about it all the time, but being at football practice full time is really starting to sink in. I still feel this isn’t what I’ve been doing my whole life, it’s technically still not what I’m used to because I’ve played soccer up into high school.
Has there been a kick where you did start to feel some pressure?
Maybe the extra points in overtime against Arizona State. Not thinking about it too much, but when they were rushing hard off the edges and coming a lot closer you notice that.
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