Easy money: Confident USC kicker Elliott Fry ready for any situation
He sits at the table, looking like he just finished watching SpongeBob, and you think about what he’s been through.
Trying to play football in the SEC when he weighs 165 pounds (with a dictionary in hand). Being diagnosed at age 7 with Type I diabetes and having his life consumed with the disease, the constant blood-sugar checks and always making sure to have extra insulin and Gatorade as much a part of his every day routine as pulling on his socks. Halfway across the country from family and friends.
Then the biggest – knowing that he has the best and worst job on the football team. That kick sails through the uprights, everything’s great. The fans cheer, ask for his chinstrap, pat him on the back. But miss one, no matter how many he’s made before, and he’s not fit to sleep with the dogs.
You think of all that and wonder how Elliott Fry manages to sit there and say what he says. “Life really can’t get any better right now,” he says through a lopsided grin.
And you realize that for the No. 24 Gamecocks’ tiny Texan kicker, it really can’t.
“I call him, ‘Easy Money,’ ” quarterback Dylan Thompson says. “That’s him. He gets out there, he’s going to make it.”
Fry heads into the third game of his second college season with his third career SEC Player of the Week honor, selected as the special teams honoree after connecting on all four of his field-goal attempts and all three of his PATs last week. USC’s offense was successful against East Carolina but stalled in some trips to the red zone; Steve Spurrier needed no script for those situations and summoned the little one.
Fry calmly kicked field goals of 39, 42, 26 and 20 yards, the last providing a 10-point lead with 90 seconds to play. Miss that one and the Pirates could hit their offense’s booster rockets for a game-tying touchdown.
Nervous?
“You kind of look at it afterwards,” Fry said. “In the moment, there’s really no time to sit there and think about what could happen. That’s my job. I’m here to make kicks.”
He made a passel of them as a freshman, a school-record 54 PATs and a 15-of-18 showing on field goals that was good enough to earn an SEC All-Freshman team selection. An unknown walk-on from Frisco, Texas, who turned down a scholarship offer to Louisiana Tech to come to Columbia, Fry was named the starter in preseason camp and started delivering.
Fry drilled a 20-yard field goal in the Gamecocks’ stunning fourth-quarter comeback at Missouri in 2013, then hit from 40 yards in the second overtime. That one turned out to be the game-winner. He also converted two fourth-quarter field goals that enabled the Gamecocks to slip past Florida.
“He’s a confident young man,” Spurrier said. “He’s not afraid of the situation.”
USC has two kickers in the NFL – the bazooka-legged Ryan Succop, who was built like a linebacker and could blast 50-yarders, and Spencer Lanning, like Fry a walk-on who earned a scholarship and who then fought his way onto a pro roster. Fry, meanwhile, has trouble persuading people he plays football.
“There’s a little bit of that,” he admitted. “Some people still look at me and really don’t think that. I really don’t look like one, to be honest.”
Yet, he delivers. He missed his first attempt this year, a 54-yarder against Texas A&M that had the distance but not the direction, but quickly put the disappointment behind him. He feels he can make them from any spot and wants to prove it in the biggest situation.
Fry wants to be out there, lining up with three seconds remaining and USC trailing. He wants to sprint the length of the field, arms outstretched, until his teammates catch him and pile on. Miss? No way.
“I’m confident from wherever they put me in,” Fry said. “Ever since the Missouri and the Florida kicks, I’ve wanted a real game-winner. Hopefully, we can beat them by more and it won’t come down to that, but I’m ready. I’m confident I can make it.”
This story was originally published September 10, 2014 at 7:37 PM.