By Zach Abolverdi / The Gainesville Sun Florida signee Austin Hardin has only been a kicker for a short period of time, but he’s got long range with his leg. After spending his middle-school years in Bolivia playing soccer for the youth national team, he showed up at Marist high school in Atlanta, Ga., and gave American football a shot. “I’ve always had a really strong leg from the moment I first started kicking, which was around ninth grade,” Hardin said. “I came out for football tryouts and made a 55-yard kick. I was only 14 years old. Ever since…

GAINESVILLE — Florida punter David Lerner, a former Prokicker.com camper, is one of four finalists for the Uplifting Athlete Rare Disease Champion Award. The Gators' redshirt junior was diagnosed with Crohn's disease before the start of fall camp. Lerner received the Dick Schapp Sportsman of the Year Award in December. He played in the Gators' first six games, recording 27 punts for 1,040 yards (38.5 yards per punt). Despite being diagnosed with Crohn's in July, Lerner did not miss a day of camp, although he lost nearly 15 pounds. He won the starting punting job and received a scholarship before…

By Thomas Goldcamp / Gator Country Through three games, Caleb Sturgis is Florida’s leading scorer with 39 points on a perfect 9-of-9 field goals and 12-of-12 extra points. When your kicker is your leading scorer, it’s usually a good thing and a bad thing. Good because you’ve got a reliable kicker and bad because your kicker is in position to score so many points. That’s been the case for Florida so far this season. “I’m always cheering for the offense to score, but if we need to go out there, we’ll do the job,” Sturgis said. The Gators have struggled…

ATLANTA, Ga. – Austin Hardin, a highly regarded kicker out of Atlanta Marist School, committed to Florida on Wednesday. Hardin made a visit to Gainesville this week and jumped on the offer by new coach Will Muschamp, becoming the 13th player to commit to the Gators. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound Hardin was ranked the No. 1 kicker in the country by KohlsKicking.com and No. 10 by Rivals.com. Hardin also had offers from Auburn, Tennessee and Buffalo, according to reports. His longest field goal for Marist, a private school, was a 59-yard game-winner in the closing seconds of last year’s regional finals.

By Michael DiRocco / Jacksonville.com Florida center/guard Mike Pouncey is almost certainly going to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday. Safety Ahmad Black has a chance to hear his name called on Friday during the second and third rounds. But it doesn't look like there will be many other Gators players taken in the three-day draft. After a monster year in which nine players were drafted — six in the first two rounds — Florida could have three or fewer players drafted for the fifth time in the last seven years. "It's an unusual…

From Gatorzone.com Early in camp, Florida kicker Caleb Sturgis reported his back is close to being back to 100 percent, and he will be ready to go at full strength when fall camp opens. Sturgis played in the first four games of last season before being a late scratch for Florida’s game at Alabama. punter Chas Henry took over field-goal duties — including a game-winning field goal in overtime to defeat Georgia — but the Gators missed Sturgis’ ability to kick field goals and handle kickoffs. "I haven't done kickoffs or anything like that yet," he said. "But I'm feeling…

By Robbie Andrew / Gainesville Sun Looking back on the five-loss season a year ago, the signs of trouble started popping up early for the Florida Gators. There were the bad shotgun snaps and offensive ineptitude in the opener. Ineffective quarterback play and the struggle to sustain drives and score points in the three games that followed. But maybe the most foreboding sign of all rocked Gator Nation just a few hours before the showdown with No. 1 Alabama in Tuscaloosa — the late-breaking news that starting place-kicker Caleb Sturgis was out with a serious back injury and might be…

By Mark Maynard / PKN Editor Florida punter Chas Henry (Dallas, Ga.), the first player in Florida history to win the Ray Guy Award presented to the nation's top punter, showed his versatility in the Gators’ 37-24 victory over Penn State in the Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day. Henry, pressed into placekicking duties because of an injury, kicked two fields, including a career-best 47-yarder along with handling the punting duties. Henry bested opponents Drew Butler of Georgia and Ryan Donahue of Iowa for the Ray Guy Award. He was one of three finalists for the honor in 2009. Henry…