LEXINGTON -- Kentucky's kicking game got a boost on signing day with the signing of kicker Landon Foster out of Thompson Station, Tenn. Foster is listed as both a kicker and a punter.

Kentucky will be looking at all options next season with the graduation of long-time punter Ryan Tydlacka, who made the Cats one of the best punting units in the SEC.

Coach Joker Phillips told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the Kentucky coaches knew Foster was a good kicker, not from the moment they saw his 6-foot-1, 198-pound frame, but from the moment they heard him meet the ball.

"You know an SEC punter when you hear him," Phillips said of Foster, who averaged 41.3 yards per punt last season for Independence. "You know an SEC kicker when you — you don't have to see it, you can close your eyes and walk past and it's going to sound different than a pee– wee punter. This guy is an SEC punter, high character kid, intelligent, right look in his eyes."

Foster also had 50 of his 56 kickoffs last season go for touchbacks. Four of the others were on-side kicks.

By Michael Grant / The Courier-Journal

Punters have more free time than their football teammates. When the University of Kentucky’s Ryan Tydlacka isn’t practicing his craft, he is cooking up ideas.

Tydlacka: soon-to-be former UK punter turned future restaurateur? The college football career for the Trinity graduate will end Saturday when the Wildcats (4-7, 1-6 Southeastern Conference) play host to Tennessee (5-6, 1-6).

Tydlacka, one of 21 seniors playing his final game, has enjoyed a strong final season.

Tydlacka is second in the SEC and 20th in the FBS (43.7 yards per kick average). He leads the league with 18 punts of 50-plus yards, including a 63-yarder at Georgia last week. Tydlacka has helped the Wildcats rank second in the league in net punting (39.3).

Perhaps he will follow in the professional footsteps of his predecessor, Tim Masthay, who punts for the Green Bay Packers. But Tydlacka is thinking about life after football. He graduated with a business management degree last year and will pick up a second major in business marketing in May. He aims to use his education to enter the restaurant business.

“I’ve always been into food,” Tydlacka said. “I’d like to get into the restaurant industry, as a manager and maybe someday after years of experience, opening my own restaurant. I have a few friends who are in it, and it’s something I’ve always been intrigued by.”

Tydlacka has a few different ideas for a restaurant. He doesn’t have a name yet but would like to emphasize healthy, local food and eventually develop a chain.

“Everything would be organic and freshly made ... farm-raised turkey from around the area,” he said. “You would have wraps and different salads. (The menu) would change wherever the location was so you would get the food that was specific to that area.”

It’s a homegrown concept from a homemade talent. Tydlacka stayed in-state and chose UK over the University of Louisville out of high school. At Trinity, he was the punter and place-kicker and helped the Shamrocks to a pair of state championships.

After red-shirting in 2007, he punted and kicked as a freshman. In 2009, Tydlacka took over for the departed Masthay and has been stellar since. He was named a Ray Guy Award candidate earlier this month. In a season where the UK offense has struggled, Tydlacka routinely bails the team out.

Only four FBS punters have booted the ball more times than Tydlacka (70 attempts): Memphis’ Tom Hornsey (84), Idaho’s Bobby Cowan (83), Kent State’s Matt Rinehart (78) and Louisiana Tech’s Ryan Allen (74). Earlier this season, UK coach Joker Phillips called Tydlacka a team MVP.

Special teams coordinator Greg Nord looks for punts around 40 yards with a hang time of 4.2 seconds. Nord said Tydlacka has helped the Wildcats with field position with his distance as well as directional punting. At Georgia, Tydlacka had eight punts for a 46.4 average. The Bulldogs had only one punt return for 22 yards.

“He’s done everything we’ve asked of him,” Nord said. “He’s punted the ball fairly well. He’s done a good job for us. We’re proud of the way he’s played.”

Tydlacka expects to have six to 10 family members and friends at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday. That will include his brother Wade, who punted for U of L. Tydlacka expects to feel a little sad playing his final home game.

“I’m sure I’ll probably be a little emotional at the beginning when I go out there with my family,” he said. “I’m sure everyone does. Other than that, I’ll be ready for the game. It’s been five years of hard work. Hopefully it ends with a Tennessee win.”

By Patrick Brown / Chattanooga Times Free Press

KNOXVILLE — The adage says if a football team has two quarterbacks, it really has none.

Tennessee extended that saying to punters in last week's loss to Arkansas, when Matt Darr had one punt returned for a touchdown and Michael Palardy's two punts went 12 and 27 yards.

"The rotating deal didn't work out too good," UT special teams coordinator Eric Russell said after Wednesday morning's indoor practice. "You'd like to have one guy settle down and be your guy. Can we do that yet? I don't know. How do these guys come out of ruts? I don't know."

Darr, the redshirt freshman, is the Volunteers' hangtime punter, while Palardy, the sophomore who handles field goals, extra points and kickoffs, is a more effective directional kicker. Coach Derek Dooley has said he bases decision on his "feel" in addition to the situation.

Both have had moments good and bad this season. Darr averaged more than 40 yards per punt against Florida and Georgia, but he had a 29-yarder against Buffalo, a short one that Georgia turned into a go-ahead touchdown and the one Joe Adams returned last week. Palardy averaged 40 yards on five punts against Alabama while limiting, but he had one blocked at and another nearly returned at Florida.

"For me and Matt, it's hard to find a rhythm," Palardy said. "When we're switching in and out, punt after punt or he's does three punts and I do two punts, it's hard to find a rhythm. It's kind of hard to get the production that we need if can't get a rhythm and figure out what the wind is doing and all that kind of stuff. We just do whatever we have to do to help the team out."

Dooley said after the game that his punters have a net on the sideline with which to stay in rhythm and just need to go out and punt. Russell said the punters have the time before the rest of the team takes the field before games to work out factors such as the wind.

"[We'd] like Matt to win the job and be consistent week in and week out, not only just on his kicking, but his operation and his approach," Russell said. "[It's] just like anywhere. Let's say you're switching quarterbacks: it's hard, but it's hard to put all your eggs in one basket when you haven't seen one guy clearly say, 'Hey, it's my job.'"

Birmingham News

By Scott Walters / The Dispatch

STARKVILLE -- On a night when the Mississippi State football team's offense struggled to find a rhythm, the special teams unit produced highlights Saturday night in a 26-20 overtime win against Louisiana Tech at Davis Wade Stadium.

Offensively, MSU averaged 4.7 yards per play on 73 snaps. However, the Bulldogs scored 14 points on special teams, including an 82-yard punt return by Chad Bumphis. Placekicker Derek DePasquale also added a pair of field goals.

"The punt return was a huge play, really huge play," MSU coach Dan Mullen said. "Their kicker (punter Ryan Allen) kicked the ball too good. We had the return set up down the field. Chad made a couple of players miss. It was a huge momentum play early in the game."

Allen averaged 45 yards on seven kicks. On Louisiana Tech's first possession, the junior kicker boomed a 72-yard punt. Bumphis took the ball in at the 18-yard line and made the initial defenders miss.

"The punt return definitely gave us a spark," MSU senior running back Vick Ballard said. "It was a tone-setter. A play like that can really spark a crowd, too. Fortunately, we made some plays there at the end to pull the win out."

MSU won in overtime on a 17-yard pass reception from Chris Relf to Ladarius Perkins.

MSU received another solid punting performance from Baker Swedenberg. The sophomore, from Heritage Academy in Columbus, punted seven times for a 44.7-yard average. The Bulldogs had two punts go better than 50 yards, and two punts result in touchbacks.

A potential game-changer may have taken place early in the third quarter. The Bulldogs attempted a fake punt on fourth-and-1 from their 34. Perkins took the handoff on an end-around and was stuffed for no gain. Ballard had been stopped for no gain on third down.

Louisiana Tech took advantage of the short field, moving 34 yards on six plays. Nick Isham hit Quinton Patton for a 14-yard touchdown. The kick by Matt Nelson tied the game at 17.

For MSU, the coverage teams had another strong outing. The Bulldogs allowed 97 yards on four kickoff returns and minus-7 yards on two punt returns. Conversely, MSU had 81 yards in punt returns and 57 yards in kickoff returns.

"Our coverage teams played well tonight," Mullen said. "In the kickoff return game, we did some things. Both punters really boomed the ball. The special teams' game went back and forth. It was good to see our guys make some plays."

DePasquale is 7 of 8 on field goals and 14 of 14 on extra points this season. The Woodlands senior drilled a 36-yard field goal prior to the half to give MSU a 17-10 lead. A 24-yard field goal in the third quarter gave MSU a 20-17 lead with 5 minutes, 21 seconds left in the third quarter.

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 in the red zone, forced to settle for field goals on six of their 16 red zone trips, while scoring touchdowns on nine of them. The red-zone struggles have been a point of emphasis for the Florida coaching staff.

After the Gators settled for field goals on three of their first four red zone drives against UAB, head coach Will Muschamp said his team had to do better against Tennessee.

So, while he was undoubtedly happy for Sturgis on Saturday, he probably wasn’t too pleased with the fact that his junior kicker had a career-high four field goals against the Volunteers.

Early in the season, Sturgis has been called on much more than the first-year coach would like. Still, someone as reliable as he has been has been a huge asset to the team.

“Caleb’s just been outstanding for us,” Muschamp said. “A guy that certainly gives me a huge comfort level when we hit that 35-yard line, to know that we’re going to get three points, and I feel pretty comfortable about that.”

Sturgis’ 39 points through three games makes him the only kicker to rack up that many points in the first three games dating back to at least 2000. Only once since 2000 has a kicker tallied more than 30 points in the first three games. Matt Leach had 35 after three games in 2003.

The redshirt junior from St. Augustine is also on pace to break a record currently held by former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.

Sturgis’ name is already tied for second in the school record books for single-season scoring with his 110 points in the 2009 season.

He’s on pace to shatter that mark, as well as Tebow’s school record 138 points in 2007. Tebow hit the mark in 13 games, but Sturgis is on pace to score 156 points in just 12 games.

That’s a two-edged sword for Florida, as it points to Sturgis much-improved accuracy, but also the inability the Gators have showed to punch it into the end zone early in the season.

For a kicker recovering from a back injury that sidelined him for the majority of the 2010 season, Sturgis’ start has been nothing short of spectacular. Feeling healthy and confident, Sturgis has come back with a vengeance.

“I’m happy to be back playing again,” he said. “I’m happy that I’m helping the team and just that our unit right now is playing really well.”

Sturgis’ training regimen has changed somewhat under the new coaching staff, and Muschamp joked in training camp that his kicker won’t be doing any more squats in the weight room.

In addition to pulling back the reins a little in the weight room, Sturgis has kicked less during the week to preserve his leg for Saturdays.

The extra rest has been obvious from the stands and on the stat sheet. After recording touchbacks on just 12 percent of his kickoffs from 2008 to 2010, Sturgis has racked up touchbacks on 29 percent of his kickoffs this season.

“I was excited about how I kicked those ones off, but I also hit a few where I shouldn’t have put them and put the kickoff team in a bad position,” Sturgis said. “They made up for it two times, so they’ve been doing really good and I just need to help them out a little more.”

Sturgis’ leg strength has always been phenomenal since he arrived at Florida. What’s been more surprising has been his increase in consistency, particularly given how much time he missed recovering from his back injury a year ago.

Heading into the season, Sturgis had hit on 71 percent of his career field goal attempts. This season, he’s perfect on nine attempts with three of them coming from more than 40 yards out.

“I feel like I’m hitting my best ball more consistently,” Sturgis said.

While Florida will certainly hope to limit Sturgis’ use field goals as the Gators hit the heart of their SEC schedule, having someone they can’t count on is a luxury not many SEC teams have.

Having someone with range like Sturgis has is something not many teams in the nation have. He has a career long 56-yarder and said he’s comfortable out to 65 yards.

“When the ball is on the 35-yard line, you’re talking about a 52-yard field goal and you feel very comfortable that you’re going to make the field goal,” Muschamp said.

Sturgis is just biding his time. He hopes the offense scores touchdowns, but if they don’t he’s more than ready to go in and convert.

“Wherever we need it, I’d like to think that I could help us once we get into that range if it comes down to it.”

The Southeastern Conference named South Carolina’s Melvin Ingram special teams player of the week Monday.
Ingram, a defensive end, took a direct snap on a fake punt and raced 68 yards for a touchdown. He also caught an onside kick to seal South Carolina’s 45-42 win at Georgia.

By Michael Casagrande / Decataur Daily

TUSCALOOSA — A few blocks from the main road sits a meadow in the heart of Tuscaloosa.

It’s quiet there.

About a hundred feet off the dead-end road sits a wooden cross. There are flowers, hand-written notes, an Alabama shaker, a football.

And an empty red chair.

It was in this serene slice of real estate where Carson Tinker’s life changed in a blink four months ago Saturday. The unapologetic EF-4 tornado of April 27 threw him several hundred feet from his pulverized home into that pasture. It’s where his girlfriend Ashley Harrison died.

Mere words can’t capture the scene.

Debris no longer litters the grass. The remains of a house across the way came down Saturday afternoon in a city still cleaning its wounds.

That’s where Tinker comes in, yet again.

As the long snapper for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team, he isn’t accustomed to the attention. It’s not a glamour position.

But in the months after losing so much, Tinker emerged as a symbol of this community’s rebirth and a reminder of its collective grief. His story went national when Sports Illustrated told his tale of heartbreak and survival in its May 23 edition. Since, and even before then, the support came from all directions — phone calls, emails, old-fashioned postal mail.

Just strapping on his crimson No. 51 jersey late Saturday morning is the next step in that mission. He never doubted he’d return to football. No way.

Missing Saturday’s season opener with Kent State wasn’t considered.

The broken wrist and deep gash on his ankle wouldn’t alter his course back to Bryant-Denny Stadium.

“I’ve been looking forward to that day for a very long time,” Tinker said. “Not just the day, the season. Every day I’ve been working to get ready for the season, and it’s here, and I’m ready. You know what I mean? You can’t put into words how that feels.”

Still, it’s hard to imagine a smile on the face of someone who lost so much. But in reality, it’s hard to knock one off Tinker’s.

That glow greeted a few old friends eager for a reunion a few weeks back.

The official Alabama football roster lists Tinker’s hometown as Murfreesboro, Tenn., but the Meek family knows better.

They remember the youngster with an “infectious smile” from Central Baptist Church and the ball fields of Decatur.

Tinker grew up in Northern Alabama before a job transfer moved his family to Tennessee after his freshman year at Austin High.

Steve Meek was one of his football coaches there and a good friend of the entire Tinker family.

He hadn’t seen Carson in several years, so the family invited him to join the group at a downtown Tuscaloosa pizza place while in town.

“Oh, he just had that big ol’ grin that I remembered from back when he was a kid in church,” said Meek, now the head football coach at Decatur Heritage. “He came through the door with a big sheepish grin on his face. It was good to see.”

Before long, he was devouring a Hawaiian pizza and talking about his zeal for the future.

“He ate a bunch,” Meek said.

His daughter, Laura Meek, is just a few years older than Tinker. She remembers a mischievous Tinker doing “typical things a boy would do” in their church youth group back in Decatur.

She also recalls horror of that late afternoon back in April when everything changed.

Laura Meek was watching storm coverage on television back home in Decatur when the phone rang. It was her boyfriend, Jesse Perrin, son of former Alabama star defensive back Benny Perrin.

Wow, was it bad.

April 27

His house in ruins, Perrin stood in his front yard watching the twister chew threw the heart of Tuscaloosa.

“Immediately, I started thinking about Carson,” Laura Meek said. “Once I saw the video of where the tornado had come from, I knew it had come directly over Carson’s house. There’s no way it could have missed it.”

The next few days were chaos.

Laura and her mother, Sandra Meek, drove to Tuscaloosa the following day. The 23-year-old “lost it” when they tried to approach Tinker’s house.

“You couldn’t even get to it,” Laura Meek said. “You couldn’t even get to where it was. It was just insane. I just broke down the second I saw it.”

Only a few cinder blocks remained of the house at 611 25th St., while about half of the next-door neighbor’s stands, as if frozen in time.

Tinker was still at DCH Hospital when the Meeks first reached out to his family. Laura spoke with his mother five days later when he was released, but she was eager to see the her childhood friend who grew into a big-time college football player.

Recovery

It was closer to two weeks after the storm when Laura Meek drove south from Decatur to Birmingham to visit Carson after a physical rehabilitation session.

Man, was she nervous.

What should she say? What shouldn’t she say? This was going to be hard.

“He had told me that he wanted to marry Ashley, knowing that he lost her and knowing how much he loved her and cared about her, I was just really, really nervous. I didn’t know what to say,” Laura Meek said. “I didn’t know how to be.”

The strength she encountered immediately put her at ease before lunch at a local restaurant. The Tinkers spoke openly and casually about Harrison.

Meek was amazed.

He reached up and gave her a big hug, though his swollen legs made it hard to stand right away.

“He was in such a good mood, better than what I expected,” Meek said. “He was in a good place already. He would joke about things. He was laughing and smiling.”

After that lunch, she texted or called every few days. She remembers how touched Tinker was by Alabama coach Nick Saban’s frequent visits to his Birmingham rehab facility.

“If you were around Carson in practice, he’s an upbeat guy,” Saban said. “You’d never know anything had happened at all. He’s probably handled this as well as anybody could.

“We certainly try to give him every support we could. His teammates have, we as coaches have, and used other people to try to help him manage what he has had to go through, not only the injuries he sustained and the loss he had personally.”

And no matter how dark it got, football was always a rallying force for the long snapper.

“You really can’t explain the relief that I get from this,” Tinker said. “I was telling somebody earlier. They were asking me how the coaches have treated me. I said, ‘The same exact way. Nothing is different coming out here. They’re not feeling sorry for me.’ That’s the most (therapeutic) thing. I mean I haven’t been doing bad, but they always demand your very best.

“And it is comforting to know you’re out there getting yelled at. I guess that sounds weird.”

Life’s next step

When he jogs onto into Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday morning, Tinker will be a junior. He redshirted in 2008 and played sparingly in 2009 before assuming the starting job at long snapper last fall.

That leaves two years of eligibility, but Tinker is getting a head start on a possible new career path.

Not long before devouring the pineapple and ham covered pizza with the Meeks, Tinker realized his tragedy could be inspiration to others.

“He really wanted to talk to people and share his story and talk to people about God,” Laura Meek said. “It seemed like he wanted to be a really big influence in people’s lives and share his story with everyone.”

Tinker recently began speaking to church groups including one in Arab on Aug. 14 — the first day off for Alabama football players in the eight days since practice opened. By the following morning, it was back to football with two Monday practices starting at 9:30.

While pondering his next move, Tinker likes to quote motivational speaker Kevin Elko, who gives an annual presentation to the Alabama football team.

“Some people pray for blessings, but I pray that I can be a blessing for somebody,” Tinker said. “I want to go out and I want to reach everybody that I can and try to inspire them, because I mean there’s a lot of people that have been through very similar things that I’ve been through, and if I can help them, I’m all for it.”

At 6 p.m. today, he is scheduled to speak at Forest Lake United Methodist Church in Tuscaloosa. The facility still bears scars from the Mother Nature’s April 27 fury.

It also stands mere city blocks from the peaceful grove that Tinker loved and lost so much.

He told Sports Illustrated he was hitting golf balls there on the day of the storm. His dog and Harrison’s were there, too, fetching each shot he struck.

Beside the memorial to the lost love of his life and the empty red chair sits a row of golf balls, a club and two more crosses with dog leashes fastened tight.

It was quiet there Saturday afternoon — not a soul in sight in a landscape years from complete recovery.

Still, the energy is unmistakable.

And Tinker won’t let that go to waste.

By MARC WEISZER / Athens Banner-Herald

MACON, Ga. - From his years as an assistant coach at Florida State sitting high up in the booth, Mark Richt couldn't quite sense the impact of full-speed collisions on kickoffs.

That changed when he got a sideline view as head coach at Georgia.

That perspective is why on Tuesday he said he would vote to eliminate kickoffs, an idea suggested by Rutgers coach Greg Schiano.

"It is violent," Richt said Tuesday at the Peach State Pigskin Preview. "It is very, very physical. You've got a bunch of guys that can run fast and are strong and they are not afraid, it's kind of a manhood thing. No one's going to back down."

Rutgers' Eric LeGrand sustained a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the neck down while covering a kickoff last season.

Back in 2003, Georgia's Decory Bryant suffered a broken neck when returning a kick, ending his playing career.

That injury, Richt said, leaves him "not all that excited" about kickoffs.

Bryant said athletic association officials unfairly denied him an insurance policy. The two sides settled for $400,000 in 2010.

Schiano proposed instead of kickoffs, that a team would punt from the 30-yard line after scores and at the start of each half. A team could choose instead to go for it in a fourth-and-15 that would serve as similar to an onside kick.

"The part about not kicking off I think if it went to a vote, I would vote for no kickoff also," Richt said. "I would just place the ball at the 23-yard line or whatever the average has been. I'm sure the defensive coaches would want it on the 18. Offensive coaches would want it on the 30."

Georgia linebacker Christian Robinson, on kickoff coverage the past two seasons, wants the play to remain in the game.

"You don't just want to line up and play," Robinson said. "That first kickoff when the crowd is going wild, that's part of the game. If you eliminate that, you eliminate part of the game."

Richt said he's not expecting imminent change.

"I don't think it's going to happen any time soon," he said. "I really don't."

Trackemtigers.com

The most difficult aspect of college football to predict and cover in preseason is the gamechanging, and often game-saving play, of the special teams.

Auburn's special team coach is Jay Boulware, although each and every position coach has a role in the development of these positions. Coach Chizik takes a very prominent role in the practice sessions of these various teams. Often the players on the special teams are comprised of some starters mixed with the non-starter personnel.

Last year while Wes Byrum was preparing to kick the game winner in the BCS National Championship game, I couldn't help but be excited to see John Sullen in there on the left side of the line. Tremendous experience for him, and for his future at AU.

The same statement can be made about many of the players we will depend on this coming season. We all remember what a great season Craig Sanders had, along with Demetruce McNeal. Making special team tackles on kick returns, and punt returns.

With new faces and legs at each of the kicking positions, there is anticipation, the nervous kind, for what the future holds. Brought about even more so because of the absence of Cody Parkey, Auburn's place kicker, from the spring game.

Still, we are now into the third year of the Chizik/Boulware system of special teams play, and the players know what to expect, and what is expected of them. Still the incoming class will add some much needed relief, in the form of participation on these vitally important phases of the game. Look for several true freshmen to be asked to fill roles in each of these.

It's not like Auburn's special team stats have set the college football world on fire either.

It's true that in PAT's Auburn was very successful with a 98.7 percent average which was second-best percentage in the country, while 33 teams had a 100 percent average. In the field goal department, the Tigers lacked the percentage grades one would hope for. Finishing ranked 52^nd in the country with an average of 77.3 percent of FGs attempted. The fact that Auburn's kicking was not highly ranked pales in comparison to the clutch performances of Wes Byrum and his teammates when the game was on the line.

Kickoff, and the returns of opponents kickoffs, found AU ranked in the top 25 nationally, so there was not a major concern there.

Where the concern comes from is the lack of disciplined play from the punt return team. Ranked 89^th in the country last season, Auburn's PR team averaged just 6.8 yards per return.

That's the most underachieved phase of Auburn's special teams. For many years with the "HALO" rule, catching a punt was taken for granted. All that changed two years ago at Auburn, and to this point, has yet to be successfully rectified.