(04-10-2017 08:22 PM)ctipton Wrote: It says he went from Cali to Washington and never mentions UC. How did you come up with thiss young man's name and intentions?
I went by the tweet. The president of the team he plays for tweets out that James is a proud Bearcat. I look up the team name and the first name James. It leads me to that article about an Aussie named James Smith from that team coming to play our football.
Plus I found his twitter, and our coaches follow him.
(04-10-2017 07:43 PM)CliftonAve Wrote: Looks like we have an Aussie coming in. Schools all over the country have been picking them up, including OSU a couple years ago.
I'm hoping it works out better than the Aussie He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named brought in, though to be fair he got injured in practice and never saw the field on game day. Lindsay Crook, I believe it was.
Big difference is the brought Crook in to be a RB, then moved him to TE and then to LB iIRC. The transition to be a punter is not as great, especially since we are doing Rugby style punting nowadays anyway.
Plus Crook had a complete ACL year in his first spring...
(04-10-2017 04:43 PM)Bearcat2012 Wrote: Doesn't seem to be his choice . Been hearing they already have some one lined up .
Tom Groeschen‏Verified account @TomGroeschen
Tom Groeschen Retweeted Sam Geraci
#UC punter and #Moeller grad Geraci leaving. Hearing #Bearcats may bring in another punter.
I hope they didn't take his scholarship away. It's one thing to bring a better player in and tell a guy he doesn't figure to play, something else to pull his scholly. I don't want to root for that kind of program.
I agree. Smells a little fishy tbh, but we'll see what facts come out.
I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
(04-11-2017 09:06 AM)nachoman91 Wrote: I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
Spoken from experience, there are anywhere between 20-50 people in Ohio at the moment who could be serviceable Division 1 specialists (counting kickers, punters, and long snappers). It won't be hard, if it doesn't pan out, to find someone who can get 38-42 on a punt...the big issue is, for quite a long time with Huber and O'Donnell, we were used to 46-50.
My honest prediction is that we will be punting more than we did during Gunner's good years, and I don't mean that as a criticism. A run-first offense may actually be more effective at winning games in the overall Fickell system, but I don't think we will see as many 50+ point shootouts where both teams hurry down the field unhindered. Punting isn't as important when you can reliably move the ball 80 yards in 90 seconds, but that kind of offense leaves our defense on the field for unreasonable amounts of time which can lose us games. Just my thoughts. Hopefully we will still retain the ability to move the ball quickly if needed.
(04-11-2017 09:06 AM)nachoman91 Wrote: I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
Spoken from experience, there are anywhere between 20-50 people in Ohio at the moment who could be serviceable Division 1 specialists (counting kickers, punters, and long snappers). It won't be hard, if it doesn't pan out, to find someone who can get 38-42 on a punt...the big issue is, for quite a long time with Huber and O'Donnell, we were used to 46-50.
Geraci was a May or June commit in 2013 if I recall. He had verbal to Air Force but took the UC greyshirt opportunity that presented itself right before he graduated.
There are no other punters on the roster - not even any walk ons. Hopefully we can bring in more than one guy who has never played American football. Has to be a quality punter out there who would very much like to come to UC as a preferred walk-on with an opportunity to compete for a scholarship.
04-11-2017 01:46 PM
BearcatMan
Kicking Connoisseur/Occasional Man Crush
Posts: 24,198
Joined: Jan 2009
Reputation: 590
I Root For: Cincinnati
Location:
(04-11-2017 09:06 AM)nachoman91 Wrote: I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
Spoken from experience, there are anywhere between 20-50 people in Ohio at the moment who could be serviceable Division 1 specialists (counting kickers, punters, and long snappers). It won't be hard, if it doesn't pan out, to find someone who can get 38-42 on a punt...the big issue is, for quite a long time with Huber and O'Donnell, we were used to 46-50.
Geraci was a May or June commit in 2013 if I recall. He had verbal to Air Force but took the UC greyshirt opportunity that presented itself right before he graduated.
There are no other punters on the roster - not even any walk ons. Hopefully we can bring in more than one guy who has never played American football. Has to be a quality punter out there who would very much like to come to UC as a preferred walk-on with an opportunity to compete for a scholarship.
By my count, there are close to 10 in Ohio alone who would be replacement level at worst. They could easily get McGuire out of Fairfield, he has natural talent, is close to home, and to my knowledge is going D2 at the moment.
(This post was last modified: 04-11-2017 02:39 PM by BearcatMan.)
(04-11-2017 09:06 AM)nachoman91 Wrote: I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
Spoken from experience, there are anywhere between 20-50 people in Ohio at the moment who could be serviceable Division 1 specialists (counting kickers, punters, and long snappers). It won't be hard, if it doesn't pan out, to find someone who can get 38-42 on a punt...the big issue is, for quite a long time with Huber and O'Donnell, we were used to 46-50.
Geraci was a May or June commit in 2013 if I recall. He had verbal to Air Force but took the UC greyshirt opportunity that presented itself right before he graduated.
There are no other punters on the roster - not even any walk ons. Hopefully we can bring in more than one guy who has never played American football. Has to be a quality punter out there who would very much like to come to UC as a preferred walk-on with an opportunity to compete for a scholarship.
By my count, there are close to 10 in Ohio alone who would be replacement level at worst. They could easily get McGuire out of Fairfield, he has natural talent, is close to home, and to my knowledge is going D2 at the moment.
Serious question - how many of them could execute the rugby style punting this staff wants?
(04-11-2017 09:06 AM)nachoman91 Wrote: I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
Spoken from experience, there are anywhere between 20-50 people in Ohio at the moment who could be serviceable Division 1 specialists (counting kickers, punters, and long snappers). It won't be hard, if it doesn't pan out, to find someone who can get 38-42 on a punt...the big issue is, for quite a long time with Huber and O'Donnell, we were used to 46-50.
Geraci was a May or June commit in 2013 if I recall. He had verbal to Air Force but took the UC greyshirt opportunity that presented itself right before he graduated.
There are no other punters on the roster - not even any walk ons. Hopefully we can bring in more than one guy who has never played American football. Has to be a quality punter out there who would very much like to come to UC as a preferred walk-on with an opportunity to compete for a scholarship.
On a depth chart I saw Garrett Rigby a redshirt freshman is listed as the back up punter. He is listed just as a kicker on gobearcat.com but was a kicker/punter in high school. He list himself as a P/K on his twitter.
(04-11-2017 09:06 AM)nachoman91 Wrote: I see this as almost a no-risk move. As mediocre as Geraci was, even if this new guy doesn't work out, I'm confident it'll be quite easy to find another punter as good as Geraci. Heck there's probably 2-3 guys from local Cincinnati high schools that graduated this year that averaged 40+.
Spoken from experience, there are anywhere between 20-50 people in Ohio at the moment who could be serviceable Division 1 specialists (counting kickers, punters, and long snappers). It won't be hard, if it doesn't pan out, to find someone who can get 38-42 on a punt...the big issue is, for quite a long time with Huber and O'Donnell, we were used to 46-50.
Geraci was a May or June commit in 2013 if I recall. He had verbal to Air Force but took the UC greyshirt opportunity that presented itself right before he graduated.
There are no other punters on the roster - not even any walk ons. Hopefully we can bring in more than one guy who has never played American football. Has to be a quality punter out there who would very much like to come to UC as a preferred walk-on with an opportunity to compete for a scholarship.
By my count, there are close to 10 in Ohio alone who would be replacement level at worst. They could easily get McGuire out of Fairfield, he has natural talent, is close to home, and to my knowledge is going D2 at the moment.
Serious question - how many of them could execute the rugby style punting this staff wants?
It's a heck of a transition as far as awareness and style come into play...but given that most of the specialists at the high school level began by punting a soccer ball, and that lends itself to a more rugby style (side approach, angled drop, more lateral than vertical leg swing), it isn't an especially difficult transition and in some cases is more comfortable since the person executing the punt has the illusion of avoiding pressure rather than walking into it, which is a big mental hurdle for a lot of people when it comes to follow through on traditional style punting. The ones who specialize as punters from a young age and didn't transition into it from a soccer background are the ones who have a tough time with rugby style. It's really all about the drop...if you can't round and center on a ball in rugby style it doesn't matter how big of a leg you've got.
The thing about traditional punting is that it's based on full muscle memory, the catch, release, drop distance, leg swing, are all repeatable motions sort of like a golf swing...most people can't pull a Happy Gilmore if they've been swinging the same way for 30 years. The problem comes from the steps and drop angle, and a lot of traditional punters don't "trust" that the ball with be there like they know it would be in a straight approach, which typically results in them speeding up their motion and topping the ball causing it to both travel shorter distances and have less protective hang-time. That happened a ton with John Lloyd the season they had him do rugby or avoidance/roll-out style punting.
With that being said, I would assume this Aussie is going to be a lot more impressive that you might think. Although the center of mass of a rugby ball is a bit more substantial than that of a football from a "sweet spot" perspective, pretty much every person who plays the back in rugby can boom the hell out of the ball.
(This post was last modified: 04-11-2017 03:36 PM by BearcatMan.)
One thing for certain is this new rugby fellow James Smith is a big guy. He towers over everyone in the twitter pics other than Fickell who is i thought 6'4 or 6'5. He looks to be a nudge bigger than Fick.
Smith actually played Australian rules football and not rugby. The balls are similar but a completely different game.
The term rugby punt is sort of generic. I'd guess most of the Aussies playing college ball in the US actually came from an AFL background rather than rugby.
/
Sam Geraci Transferring
