Clemson kickers, punters know what is expected of them
Nobody coaches the kickers and punters at Clemson, but that’s not much different than most anywhere in college football.
As Clemson’s special teams coach, Danny Pearman has kickers and punters under his supervision. Though Pearman has a great deal of experience with college special teams, he would probably be out of his element tutoring kicker Greg Huegel and punter Andy Teasdall on the finer points.
Most kickers have a mentor much like a golfer has a swing coach, but on a major college football roster the other 110 players often have several people qualified in blocking, tackling, running, throwing or catching.
“They’re here because they can all fundamentally do the job,” coach Dabo Swinney said of Huegel and Teasdall. Assistance with focus and concentration come in generous doses. Sports psychologists are on the payroll, but no kicking coaches.
“As far as the mental part of it, absolutely, and we work hard on that,” Swinney said. “Kickers all have their gurus who they spend time with in the summers. That’s just kind of their own little world.”
Teaching the finer skills has become a lucrative industry, attracting dozens of former pros as accomplished as Hall of Fame punter Ray Guy and 23-year veteran kicker John Carney.
Dan Orner, a coach for 15 years based in Charlotte, divides kickers and punters into “gamers” and everybody else, distinctive groups with fluid boundaries defined primarily by an ability to block out all distraction and perform on demand. Baseball closers and the best golfers are gamers — all highly competitive, yet capable of disguising their emotions.
Chandler Catanzaro, Dawson Zimmerman and Bradley Pinion are gamers who recently wore Clemson uniforms. Ammon Lakip was building a dossier as a gamer until an arrest in June placed his career on hold.
A couple afternoons in Death Valley and a Thursday night in Louisville, Ky., should determine whether Huegel and Teasdall are card carrying members of the club.
Huegel, of Blythewood, needed two auditions to win a uniform at Clemson and then beat out scholarship kicker Alex Spence to replace Lakip for at least the first three games this season. His performance during camp this month was clearly superior, surprising Clemson coaches with the power generated by his smallish frame.
“His ball striking was outrageous,” said Orner, who conducts camps at several college campuses and clinics in Charlotte. As many as nine of his pupils have kicked in the NFL.
“He’s not the biggest guy in the world, but he hits it like a ton of bricks,” he said. “He didn’t have a tough transition because he was already kicking off the ground.
“The biggest challenge from high school and college is the speed and feeling the pressure.”
Orner definitely believes Huegel is a gamer.
“He’s a laidback kid. He’s one of the nicest guys you’ll meet,” Orner said, “but when he starts taking his steps back he can flip a switch. It’s a great mentality. His reminds me a lot of Denver Broncos kicker Connor Barth (whose) laidback mentality is mistaken, that he’s not serious.
“Both of those guys have laser focus.”
Teasdall doesn’t have a punting guru, but there hasn’t been a pressing need. As a redshirt freshman in 2013, he punted once in the S.C.State game for 42 yards and in the bowl game with Oklahoma he punted twice for a 43.5-yard average.
“In high school I went to a couple of camps then took it back to high school, created my craft and worked on perfecting it,” he said. “Now, you’ve got the other guys who watch you and you can watch film, and we help each other.”
At R.J.Reynolds High he was a football player — receiver, safety, kicker and punter who never came off the field — and an all-state lacrosse player. His biggest adjustment to college football was the down time at practice, particularly with Pinion punting.
When Pinion decided to leave after his junior season and turn pro, Swinney encouraged Teasdall to continue preparing as if the job would be his. Teasdall won it during spring practice, and last week Swinney presented him with a scholarship.
“A door opens and you’ve got to take advantage of it,” Teasdall said. “Looking forward to this season I was working on mainly staying even keeled as possible, staying level, not getting too high and too low.
“If I do that, I know I’ll be good.”
With or without a coach.