Australian kickers making their mark in the Big 12 Conference with booming punts

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BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — The Big 12 has certainly gone Down Under to get a leg up in the punting game. Nine of the conference’s top 15 punters this season hail from Australia.

Crikey! That's a lot of booming Aussie punters, mate.

“Punting is a natural thing for us,” explained Colorado's Damon Greaves, who’s from Busselton, a small city in the southwestern corner of Western Australia. “You guys grow up throwing it. ... We grow up punting it.”

Statistically, the league's best Aussies include Finn Lappin (Kansas), Liam Dougherty (Houston), Max Fletcher (Cincinnati), Orion Phillips (Utah), Jack Burgess (Texas Tech), Sam Vander Haar (BYU), Greaves, Oliver Straw (West Virginia) and Ethan Craw (TCU).

Combined, the Australian contingent is averaging 44.1 yards per boot this season. They've also pinned opponents inside the 20-yard line on 55 occasions. Craw has the long punt of the bunch this season at 69 yards.

The influx of Aussies can be attributed, in part, to Australian rules football, which is a blend of running with the ball (think tailback) and kicking (punter). Just like American football, Aussie version uses an oddly shaped ball (in their case, an oval).

Most players can kick with either foot and roll out either way to rocket a punt — just in case it's needed.

The transition between Aussie rules and American football, though, takes some time.

That's where Prokick Australia enters the picture. The development academy teaches burgeoning punters the proper technique, skills and strategy. Not only that, but the program gets prospective players used to playing with a helmet and pads.

There are roughly 85 players from Prokick Australia in American college or pro football. Among those are Broncos rookie Jeremy Crawshaw (Florida), Bears punter Tory Taylor (Iowa) and Seahawks punter Michael Dickson (Texas).

The program has produced Ray Guy award winners and numerous All-Americans since it was started in 2007 by former Australian Football League player Nathan Chapman.

“We’re instinctively good at kicking. But there’s not much that needs to happen for it to go wrong, so we still need to practice it,” Chapman said in a phone interview from Australia. “It’s part of what we’ve grown up doing and this is where we start to just utilize some of those skills to bring it into the American game.”

The Big Ten had an influx of Aussie punters in 2022.

Now, it's the Big 12's turn.

“If we put a dominant punter in the Big Ten or the Big 12 or the SEC and a coach plays against one of our players and says, ‘I want that,’ we need to give them someone who's going to compete against that level,” Chapman explained. “We’re really selective on who we give the opportunity to kick at that level and they do a lot of training to get through our processes to make sure that we feel like they can handle the demands of SEC football or the Big 12.”

Greaves grew up playing high-level Australian rules football before making the switch to punting. He started his career at Kansas and then transferred to Colorado.

The path to college was a winding one for the 28-year-old Vander Haar. He spent a number of years selling swimming pools for his dad’s company before attending a tryout with Prokick Australia. He learned the nuances of punting and it turned into an opportunity to kick for Pittsburgh and now BYU.

“I never even thought I’d go to university,” Vander Haar said. “I looked at some jobs, but I didn’t have a degree, and so that kind of stumped me a little bit. But then obviously I felt like I could punt the football a little bit, and so I joined Prokick.”

It's forged friendships, too.

On Friday, when the Cougars (4-0, 1-0 Big 12) host West Virginia (2-3, 0-2) it will be a momentary reunion for two close friends. Straw was in Vander Haar’s wedding.

Last weekend, Vander Haar had the chance to catch up with Greaves in Boulder.

“It’s like a Prokick pipeline,” Vander Haar said. “There’s a bunch of us and it’s kind of cool.”

It even extends beyond the Big 12.

Vander Haar connected with another Prokick alum, Tomas O’Halloran of East Carolina, before their game on Sept. 20. Vander Haar didn’t know the punter but received a message from O’Halloran on social media.

“He was like, ‘What’s up? It would be cool to hang out,’” Vander Haar recounted. “You just have that bond — you all came from the same program."

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AP freelance writer Monica Costello contributed to this report.

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