Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Latin's Myers kicking at North Carolina today

Who is the most heavily recruited player on Charlotte Latin’s football team?

How about kicker Sam Myers, who is being looked at closely by a number of major powers.

“Sam went to some of those kicking combines, particularly the one in Las Vegas, where he was the top guy, and suddenly the phone calls started,” said Latin coach Larry McNulty.

Sam, according to dad Dave Myers, has visited Alabama. LSU and Memphis would both like him to visit—unfortunately their camps happen to be on the same day, July 25.

“Stanford got in touch with us, but his mom (Leigh) vetoed that,” Dave said. “Too far away, and we’ll have a younger one playing on Friday nights.”

Illinois is recruiting Sam heavily, but that too, may be too long a trip.

“He’s thinking ACC and SEC, and really in the South,” his father said.

Today, Sam is camping at North Carolina. He’ll go to N.C. State Friday and Wofford on Saturday.

Kickers have always been something of an afterthought in college football recruiting. Yeah, we got all our tackles and wide receivers. Let’s invite a bunch of high school kicker/punters to walk on.

While it’s still like that to a degree, the kicking camps and combines, and players like Myers are changing that.

“He’s been working with an ex-professional kicker (former Tar Heels standout Dan Orner),” McNulty said. “He’s got great hang time and a very strong leg.”

Even before Myers began polishing his technique, he was a weapon for Latin last season as a junior, earning all-state honors. He made four of five field goals for a team that rarely attempted them. He also converted 47 of 54 extra-points.

“He kicked and punted for us, and I’d say 70 percent of his kickoffs went into the end zone,” McNulty said. “He’s really good and he’s getting better.”

--Stan Olson

4 comments:

MichaelProcton said...

By "ex-professional," does he mean the guy was in a couple weeks worth of training camp?

And yes, special teams players are important. If you've got 80+ scholarships, there's no sense in competing for quality kickers. If a team is terrible, odds are they didn't have very good special teams (see Duke, whose bad stretch has been highlighted by bad punting and even worse place-kicking; turning that around with Kevin Jones and Joe Surgan last year helped fuel their mini-surge.)

MichaelProcton said...

Oh...and are colleges really impressed by an XP rate of less than 90%? One here or there missed is ok, but one every other game?

Stan Olson said...

Michael, expect his x-pt rate to improve dramatically this year. Orton has apparently greatly helped him in all technique aspects of the job...

MichaelProcton said...

Good. A guy who hopes to play on the college level should certainly be considering a 19-yard kick from dead center a gimme.