Just For Kicks
August 11, 2009 08:32 PM | General
August 11, 2009
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| Tyler Bitancurt |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Who will be West Virginia’s place kicker this year? That is perhaps the biggest question Coach Bill Stewart must answer before the conclusion of fall camp.
Last spring, Stewart was so unsure of his kickers that he brought in Western Washington transfer Josh Lider to inject more competition into the equation. So far, that’s exactly what Stewart is getting.
“It’s too early to tell who the starter will be,” Stewart said Sunday evening.
What Stewart wants is a kicker who can consistently put the football through the uprights on placements, and one with the leg strength to get the ball beyond the 20 yard line on kickoffs with enough hang time for his defenders to cover the return man.
“We have a pretty good competition going on between Josh and Tyler for kicking off,” Stewart noted. “They seem to be doing a pretty good job with that.”
Because West Virginia performed so poorly on kickoffs last year, Stewart decided to visit some of the best kickoff coverage units in the country last spring to get some different ideas. He came out of every visit with one common theme - hang time.
“I want to see how the ball hangs – and then we’ll look at our coverage,” Stewart said. “I think we need to implement some of the things we saw and add it to our repertoire.”
Tyler Bitancurt has a leg up on Lider in one aspect - he’s been in the program for a year. Bitancurt came to WVU upon the recommendation of former All-American kicker Paul Woodside.
“He’s the guy. He helped me all of the time back when I was in high school,” said Bitancurt of Woodside. “I have never heard one thing come out of his mouth that wasn’t right. He can fix me in about 10 minutes.”
Bitancurt made 13 of 17 field goal tries at West Springfield (Va.) High School during his senior season, including a long of 50 yards. Bitancurt said he is comfortable kicking from that distance.
Bitancurt believes consistency will be the determining factor in who will win the kicking job.
“I want to show the coaches that I can do it every time they want me to,” he said. “I’m going to miss, that’s normal, but I just want to stay calm and show them that I want to do it and I’m ready to do it.”
Bitancurt admits he’s a much different kicker technically than Pat McAfee so any comparisons between the two are a moot point.
“Everyone knows how good McAfee was last year and I tried to feed off of that,” Bitancurt said. “But I knew that we have different styles as kickers. I wasn’t going to learn the way he kicked because that wouldn’t help me at all. What I did was I watched his attitude, his composure, and I learned a lot from him that way.”
The differences are really noticeable.
McAfee played a slight draw on his field goal tries, aiming just out to the right of the goal post and curving the ball through the uprights. Bitancurt has a totally different approach.
“I aim down the middle,” he said. “Obviously if the wind is coming from the right I aim a little out to the right, but never outside of the uprights. We just have different styles of kicks and I’m fine with mine.”
Bitancurt says he learned how to kick from Josh Czajkowski, now performing at N.C. State. Last year as a sophomore, Czajkowski was fourth in the ACC in field goals made per game (1.23) and third in field goal percentage (.842).
“I look up to him because he’s doing pretty well down there,” said Bitancurt.
Bitancurt also accepts frequent advice from Woodside, who runs a summer camp for kickers called Before U Kick.
“He says to focus on technique,” said Bitancurt. “You can’t think about everything you need to do before you kick a field goal because you’ll mess up – just get one thing in your head and do it.”
One of the interesting things Woodside does with his kickers is he takes them to the driving range to hit golf balls. Some of the same techniques used to hit a golf ball also apply to kicking.
“You get your hips through and keep your head down – it’s all mental, just like kicking,” Bitancurt says.
As for winning the kicking job this fall, Bitancurt said he’s worked hard for the opportunity to show his stuff.
“I’m a redshirt freshman and I sat out last year behind McAfee,” he said. “I respect (Lider), he’s good and I understand that, but I’m here for this spot, too.”
Briefly:
“We have a long road to go, but I felt pretty good about what we accomplished,” Stewart said.
“It’s unusual to have guys as tall and athletic as Robert is because he does have a high center of gravity,” Dunlap said. “But he does have the ability to bend and change directions. He’s a rare bird when it comes to that.”
Schlabach has Pitt winning the Big East and facing Mississippi in the Sugar Bowl and Feldman has South Florida winning the league and facing Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.
