Kicking the habit
There were plenty of reasons USC’s kickoff coverage struggled last season, but the problem started with the kicks.
The Gamecocks had 59 kickoffs in 2009; exactly one went for a touchback.
Adam Yates handled most of those kicks, but the walk-on faces competition this spring from transfers Jay Wooten (North Carolina) and Joey Scribner-Howard (Carson-Newman).
Spencer Lanning is the fallback option, but coaches would rather not tax Lanning’s leg any more beyond his punting and place-kicking responsibilities.
Scribner-Howard played soccer and football at Dutch Fork and showed off a big leg during the fall while sitting out under NCAA transfer rules.
Scribner-Howard had a solid night Tuesday. On Thursday, not so much.
In fact, all of the kickers struggled during Thursday’s kickoff drills, leading to a funny scene on the practice field involving special teams coach Shane Beamer (although Beamer likely failed to find the humor in it).
After Yates hit an ugly squib, Beamer yelled: “We’ll just onsides kick all year!”
He then reminded the kickers that they did nothing all practice with the exception of this particular drill.
With that, Wooten stepped up … and promptly sent a short kick out of bounds.
If this keeps up, any USC student who played soccer as a kid might want to look up Beamer’s phone number.
3 Comments to “Kicking the habit”
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USC football beat writer Joe Person has covered the Gamecocks since the start of the 2002 season. He's been on the college football beat since 1993. 
D-III teams have better kickers than we do,
inexcusable
[...] Carolina’s offense has been all no-huddle through three spring practices.23. USC’s is looking for deeper kickoffs — and possibly a new kicker — in 2010.24. Bruce Pearl was proud of his team’s [...]
All I have to say is theat the kicker’s have the easiest job on the team. They really need to proverbally “Get their crap together”.