Frozen Elephant: Can Packers Rookie Trey Smack Succeed at Ice-Cold Lambeau?

GREEN BAY – Everyone has had the same question for Trey Smack.

Even Matt LaFleur.

“I’ve asked him twice now,” LaFleur said. “‘Can you kick in the cold?’ He had a good response for me.”

Which was?

“I said, ‘I can kick in the cold,’” Smack said. “That’s exactly what I said, and that was it.”

Smack didn’t miss many kicks at the University of Florida. He made 82.8 percent of his field-goal attempts in three seasons, including 10-of-13 from 50-plus yards. He missed only one extra point.

The frozen elephant in the room, of course, is Smack has never had to kick a big field goal in the snow or when the wind chill is minus-20. The challenge, according to former NFL kicker Matt Stover, is more mental than physical.

“Can you overcome the distraction of the conditions?” Stover, who played a pivotal role in Smack going from lacrosse player to sixth-round draft pick, told Packers On SI.

Stover would know. He was born in Dallas and played at Louisiana Tech. His NFL career included five seasons for Cleveland, including the 1994 season, when he led the NFL in accuracy, and 13 seasons for Baltimore, including All-Pro seasons in 2000 and 2006.

Neither Dallas nor Ruston, La., will be confused with Gainesville or Los Angeles. Stover didn’t just survive, though. He thrived.

For Smack, there could hardly be different environments than The Swamp and Lambeau Field. The average high temperature in Gainesville, Fla., on Christmas is 68 degrees. The average high in Green Bay is 28, with the potential of it being much, much colder, especially for primetime showdowns.

Get It Done

“If you can kick, you can kick, but can you compartmentalize and can you embrace the difficulty of it like I had to in Cleveland?” Stover said. “And when you’ve got a guy like (Bill) Belichick, he doesn’t give two cruds about the conditions. ‘Get it done or I’ll find somebody else who does.’

“So, that was my whole mantra on how I had to overcome those fears and the insecurity. It was like, I’m going to beat the other guy on the other side of the field today. And I don’t care what the conditions are, kick the ball. Just make it easy. Don’t go out there and make it any harder. Kick it straight every single time.”

As kick guru and Wisconsin native Jamie Kohl said, it will help that Smack will have to deal with the cold every day, whether it’s on the practice field or simply going outside to go to the grocery store. It also will help that Smack has a big leg and the ability to drive the ball through the wind and cold.

“For me personally, I think it’s more made of than it is,” new special teams coordinator Cam Achord said.

Florida Gators kicker Trey Smack (29) kicks an extra point against South Florida. | Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

He went through a list of premier kickers who thrived in the cold, including Ryan Longwell, who grew up in Oregon and played at Cal, and Mason Crosby, who grew up in Texas and played at Colorado. Both were excellent kickers who enjoyed long careers with the Packers.

“To me,” Achord continued, “I think it’s a little bit more made up of the cold elements than there probably really is to it. To me, it’s more about their mindset and learning how to play their ball in the wind and the elements than it is actually the cold weather and those things.

“I mean, we’re going to go kick cold footballs for practice. We practice outside, so we’ll get used to that. As many times as we can be outside or kick or could be in Lambeau and kick, the better we’re going to be.”

Cold-Weather Mindset

The cold will be a factor, there is no doubt about it. A frozen football doesn’t travel as far as the ones Smack smacked in college. That will require Smack to curb his considerable confidence … just a bit. It’s almost as if Dirty Harry was a special teams coach.

“You have to know your limitations in Green Bay,” Stover said. “What you don’t go do is say I can kick a 60-yard field goal in December. You’ve been popping them all year long and, all of a sudden, December comes along, and the field’s not as good, the ball’s a lot harder because it’s cold, the wind is there. And everybody’s expecting to kick a 60-yard field goal? I wouldn’t do that.

“Yeah, you might be able to, but the likelihood of you is less than 50 percent. So, do you want to put your opponents on the 50-yard line? No. So, you don’t kick the ball.”

That can be a challenge for a young kicker, though. When the coach turns to you and asks if you can make a long kick, honesty is the best policy.

“I had to do this with Brian Billick because he kept asking me on the sideline whether or not I could make a field goal,” Stover said. “What do you think I’m going to say as a kicker if the coach asks me if I can make it? Yeah, my finger’s on the trigger. I’m a sniper on that roof. You just tell me to take the shot, Coach.

“I’m not going to tell you whether or not I can make it. Of course I can. Because that’s how I have to be as a place kicker. I’ve already kicked it. I’m done. I’m good. And so as a young kicker, you have to gain the trust of the special teams coordinator and the offensive coordinator. You have to have a good conversation with them.

“And the best kickers understand that sometimes those limitations aren’t really what the coach wants. They would love the line of scrimmage to be the 38-yard line, back it up at 8 yards to the 46 and you’ve got a 56-yarder. In Green Bay in December? Careful. So that’s where I got on the same page as Billick and with Belichick. I had a great rapport with them and gained their trust.”

“I said, ‘Hey, Libby (Trey Smack’s mom), come here, come here, come here. He’s done with lacrosse. He’s got a pro leg.’ And that’s no joke. I said that. I knew right away that he had talent.” ⬇️https://t.co/CMvmoov3Ji
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) May 6, 2026

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