Flatliner Lambert Making Waves
December 02, 2014 03:07 PM | General
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| Josh Lambert kicks the game-winning field goal at Texas Tech earlier this year. Lambert has kicked three-game winning field goals in two seasons at West Virginia so far. |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Strap an electrocardiogram machine up to Josh Lambert at any time of the day and his EKG readings would probably look just like his kicks – straight as an arrow.
Nothing seems to rile up West Virginia University’s sophomore kicker … not high-pressure situations, not game-winning field goal attempts nor season-altering plays. Nothing.
After West Virginia associate head coach Joe DeForest found out about Lambert through Chris Sailor’s nationally known high school kicking service a couple of years ago he did his homework on Lambert and the more digging DeForest did the more he liked him.
“For the last 14-15 years I’ve been working with Chris Sailor and Rubio Long Snapping and they are the best in the country,” said DeForest. “We use those guys to help us identify kids and I’ve been doing this for so long that I can see who can kick. It’s got to fit what we do. It’s got to fit my personality and his personality.”
There is clearly no Venus vs. Mars deal between the coach and his kicker or between the kicker and his Mountaineer teammates. Yes, Lambert and DeForest are a perfect match for each other, and, yes, Josh Lambert is certainly a perfect match for the West Virginia Mountaineers.
From the moment DeForest first called Lambert to offer him a scholarship he realized that Lambert was going to be his kind of kicker.
Lambert was in class when DeForest telephoned him. He raised his hand to excuse himself - “This is a call I need to take,” Lambert told his teacher - and he stood out in the hallway and listened to DeForest’s spiel about Morgantown, West Virginia, a mere 1,196.2 miles from Lambert’s hometown of Garland, Texas.
When the short conversation was finished, Josh walked back into the classroom and sat back down. A few minutes later, he raised his hand once again and asked if he could be excused for another moment. He needed to make another call.
Lambert had some Division II-type schools recruiting him at the time and he had an offer to walk on at Texas A&M, as well as a late offer from Miami to go there as a grayshirt, but both of those came with a catch - he had to beat out the guy who was already there.
“We all know that’s a bunch of crap,” said Lambert.
So Lambert walked back out into the hallway, called DeForest back and said he would like to come to West Virginia University, a school he knew very little about other than it was now in the Big 12 Conference and would be playing a bunch of the Texas schools. When his brief discussion with DeForest was finished, Lambert walked back into class, sat back down at his seat and didn’t say a single word to anyone about what had just happened to him.
Later that day, he didn’t even tell his parents about the life-altering phone call that he received earlier that afternoon. He got around to informing them of his future plans later.
“I just called back and committed and that was it,” Lambert shrugged.
That little story is a perfect illustration of the makeup of a guy many are already calling one of the best kickers in West Virginia University history, and a young kicker who is well on his way to becoming one of the best in the country as well.
Some even say he’s the best, which is why he is one of three kickers invited to attend this year’s Home Depot College Football Awards Show next Thursday night in Orlando, Florida (WVU teammate Kevin White will also be there as a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award). Lambert, Maryland’s Brad Craddock and Florida State’s Roberto Aguayo (last year’s winner) are the finalists for this year’s Lou Groza Award presented to college football’s top kicker.
It’s difficult to find many blemishes with what Lambert has done in his two short seasons at West Virginia, especially this year.
He is currently second in the country in points scored (122) and field goals made per game (2.25). More importantly, he has established an NCAA record with 15 kicks of 40 yards or longer in a season and if he kicks two or more field goals in West Virginia’s bowl game he will set another NCAA record with 10 of those.
There’s more.
Lambert has attempted and kicked the most field goals in the country this year. His 55-yard field goal on the final play of the game to beat Texas Tech tied a 30-year record as the longest in school history and his five 50-plus-yard field goals this year also equaled a long-standing school standard.
Speaking of game-winning field goals, Lambert has already kicked three in his brief career, one last year as a freshman in overtime to defeat TCU and two this year against Texas Tech and Maryland.
And Lambert’s 54-yard bomb at the end of the first half against Baylor gave West Virginia the momentum it needed to upset the fourth-ranked Bears earlier this season in Morgantown.
“(Baylor) froze him (by calling timeout right before he was about to kick it) and he didn’t even know that they froze him,” laughed DeForest. “He had to go to the bathroom. If you watch him right after he kicked it he took straight off to the bathroom.”
The reason Lambert had to go so bad was because he has type 1 diabetes, a condition he says was first diagnosed 11 years ago. Again, no big deal for Lambert, it’s just something he says he has to deal with.
“Before the game I have to make sure I eat a good meal and before the game and during the game I try to keep my blood-sugar number around a certain level,” he said. “So I check 8-10 times a game to make sure it’s not dropping low. As long as I stay on top of it it doesn’t affect me.”
In addition to making sure that he has plenty to eat, he also has to be adequately hydrated. Earlier this year he was having problems with cramping during one of the games so the coaching staff began giving him plenty of Gatorade to drink. Sometimes too much, apparently.
“(Kickers) are not running around and sweating everything out,” Lambert pointed out.
That may be, but Lambert is also not one of those kickers who does his work at the beginning of practice and then hightails it off to the locker room to play video games or shoot pool for the rest of the day.
“They see that we go out an hour before everyone else to do our work and then when they are on the field we either go up to the indoor facility or to the grass field and kick some more and then we come back down at the end,” said Lambert. “We don’t just sit inside and play pool or ping pong.
“I think the culture for kickers has changed,” Lambert added. “As a group we all love to lift, we love to be in the weight room and I think everyone notices that and we have a lot more respect because of that.”
Kicking a few game-winners can help with the teammates, too, right Josh?
“Yeah, that doesn’t hurt either."
Two of DeForest’s former Oklahoma State kickers are now in the NFL (Cincinnati’s Quinn Sharp and Dallas’s Dan Bailey) and the coach says Lambert already has the leg strength required to play in the league.
What Lambert still lacks, though, is their consistency.
“Dan Bailey didn’t miss a kick until game 10 last year but he doesn’t have Josh’s leg. Josh has got to be more consistent with his elevation,” said DeForest. “Operation time and elevation are the things you have to work on with any kicker.”
“I don’t have a problem with my height, I just have a problem with hitting the ball high consistently sometimes,” said Lambert. “I can hit as high a ball as anyone in the nation but I just have to work on doing that every single game.
“It’s more about finishing my leg swing,” he added.
A few weeks ago, when a reporter asked Lambert how many field goals he’s made at that point in the season, or how many he’s made from a specific distance, Lambert was in the ballpark although his answers were not totally accurate.
Then he was asked how many of his kicks were game winners and he hit that one right down the middle.
“Three,” he said, flashing a sly grin. “They’re fun.”
Indeed, they are Josh.
Voting is still ongoing for this year’s Groza Award here: www.lougrozaaward.com/14finalists
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