Spring Football Preview Part 1: Specialists and Special Teams
STILLWATER -- Spring football begins on Monday, March 9, and as usual the NCAA dictates so many practices in shorts, jerseys, and helmets. Head coach Mike Gundy will be wanting to get those out of the way. He'll save one or two non contact practices for later in the spring. I've always felt that they should use one of those, like they do in fall camp, for a special teams practice. Gundy doesn't go for that in the spring because you don't have all your newcomers and with the red-shirt rule some of those guys are likely to be on your return and cover units. This year, I believe the return of a sensational and explosive kick and, maybe, punt returner, will happen with Oklahoma Player of the Year from Bixby Brennan Presley. Presley is electric! He won't be here this spring.
There will still be plenty for special teams analyst M.K. Taylor to work on. The one known with the specialist group is long snapper Matt Hembrough. The red-shirt junior from Lisle, Ill. is rock solid. He is not huge, but at 6-3, 197 pounds, Hembrough is athletic. He made a couple of tackles last season and has recovered a fumble.
Back-up Braedy Wilson (6-4, 210) out of Mustang, Okla. will be a red-shirt freshman next season.
The place kicking job is open with the departure of Matt Ammendola. The chief contenders are scholarship kicker Jake McClure, who has handled kickoffs the past two seasons, and walk-on Australian Alex Hale.
McClure can also punt and has done that a couple of times. I like McClure's mental make-up and at 6-3, 208 pounds, he is a big, strong kicker.
Hale is athletic and the 6-0, 204-pound red-shirt sophomore has shown a good leg in practice and likely is the favorite to win the job. The spring is a good time to focus on this. Test these two all you can and any other candidates that wander out and want to try. Square this away before the fall because there will be plenty to work on from scratch when that time rolls around.
Tom Hutton was solid in some areas, but inconsistent when he needed distance.
Pat Kinnison - Pokes Report chief photographer
The other specialist that needs to be worked on is punter Tom Hutton, the now 30-year-old Aussie came in with much fanfare as Gundy's pet project of wanting to have a rugby-style punter. Hutton did that well, punted well by direction, could hang the ball up, but when the field needed to be flipped, too often he hit his nine iron or wedge. Some speculation was an inconsistency in his drop. I'm not a punting expert, so I don't know, but it needs to be fixed or the Cowboys must find a punter that can flip the field when needed.
McClure is also a punter and there is red-shirt freshman walk-on Brady Pohl.
Special teams always comes out of spring with an incomplete, but if a new place kicker is determined and the punt game gets fixed, then special teams in the spring will finish as a huge success.
