Oklahoma Two Deep Preview: Punters/Kickers
With spring practice wrapped up and fall camp now just over a month away, Oklahoma players are using the offseason to improve their place on the two-deep. This series previews Oklahoma’s depth chart position by position.
While they don’t always get the respect of some of the other positions, being set at the kicker and punter spots can make a team or break them in key spots throughout a season.
At the very least, this looks to be a place where Oklahoma should be able to feel relatively comfortable with what they have to offer with experience coming back at both starting kicker and punter.
The regular place kicker will, of course, be redshirt junior Gabe Brkic who returns for his third year of full-time kicking duties.
After a flawless 2019 season where he went 17-for-17 on field goal attempts, Brkic ran into some troubles last year. He was still solid, going 20-for-26 on field goals and earning himself a spot as a Lou Groza Award Semifinalist, but it was undeniably a disappointing campaign for him.
The kicking job is firmly his, but Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma will absolutely be looking for a little bit more reliability out of someone who is expected to be one of the elite kickers in the country.
Gabe Brkic
Ty Russell / OU Athletics
Behind Brkic is redshirt freshman Zach Schmit who, understandably, is very inexperienced having only appeared twice for one kickoff against Missouri State and one against Kansas in 2020.
As long as Brkic remains healthy, this will be another year for Schmit to work on his craft and build up confidence for a possible future opportunity.
Oklahoma Position Previews:
The punter job actually has some competition despite redshirt senior Reeves Mundschau returning for his third year as the starter. Not much is asked of Mundschau with the Lincoln Riley offense putting up the numbers they often do, but he also took a bit of a step back in 2020.
After averaging 42.4 yards per punt in 2019, Mundschau went down to just 39.1 yards per attempt last year which is outside the top-80 in the country. He’ll be looking for a step up in that department.
Reeves Mundschau
OU Athletics
Perhaps Mundschau will get pushed by some competition as the Sooners brought in Arizona State transfer Josh Plaster who did some good things in Tempe last year. The transfer is still technically unofficial because of when it took place in the spring.
Plaster operated as a kickoff specialist with the Sun Devils who took advantage of an opportunity created by injuries to show off his leg. It is entirely possible that will be the role he serves with Oklahoma going into the year, with Brkic handling field goals and Mundschau handling punting duties. Time will tell on that front.
All in all, the Sooners look to be mostly set at the kicker and punter spots barring injuries. If Brkic can have a bounce back season on the field goal front, Oklahoma’s special teams units should have a chance to be a solid group all around in 2021.
