After an exceptional career at Stanford, kicker Joshua Karty looked to continue that success at the Reese’s Senior Bowl. I was able to catch up with him about halfway through the week, and the conversation we had was one I’m eager for you all to read.
This past week at the Reese’s Senior Bowl, I got the chance to talk to the two kickers and two punters in Mobile, Al.: Stanford kicker Joshua Karty, Alabama kicker Will Reichard, Iowa punter Tory Taylor and Texas Tech punter Austin McNamara.
While I thoroughly enjoyed each conversation, the one I had with Karty is one of the most insightful ones I’ve ever had about football. It was a nearly 15-minute long chat about the wide world of kicking, and I’m forever grateful to Joshua for taking that amount of time to sit down and have that conversation.
A quick background on Karty: he hails from Elon, Nc. and was the top-ranked high school kicker in the class of 2020. He committed to Stanford over Georgia, North Carolina and Appalachian State. He sat behind veteran kicker and All-Name First Team selection Jet Toner in his freshman season, then took over once Toner entered the transfer portal that offseason. After making just 10/15 field goals in his sophomore season, Karty went a perfect 18/18 in 2022 and a rock solid 23/27 this past season. He also missed just one of his 73 extra-point attempts.
However, there’s a lot more to kickers (and really any player) than just numbers.
“I think with kickers and specialists as a whole, you can look at statistics and get a good sense of how good a specialist is,” Karty said. “I’m trying to showcase myself in-person and hit the really big balls to show them that this guy can kick the shit out of the ball.”
Not only was Karty consistently accurate, he could, in fact, kick the shit out of the ball. Think of how Ken Griffey Jr. swung a bat, or how Stephen Curry shoots a three-pointer. They make moving a ball lots of feet forward look very easy.
Karty is very similar. Since 2022, 24 of his 41 makes were from 40+ yards. He also put together a couple of historic performances. Against Arizona State in 2022, Karty made a school record five kicks (with three of them being from 40+ yards out) and was responsible for all of the Cardinal’s 15 points in a one-point victory. It was also the first time in Stanford’s 103-year football history that they’d won a game without scoring a touchdown, and it was in large part due to Karty’s consistent excellence.
When you watch Karty’s kicks, you’ll notice that he gets a lot of height on the ball. It doesn’t matter if it’s an extra point or a 60-yard bomb; Karty’s gonna send that sucker to the moon, which is completely intentional. It’s also why he compared himself to one of the biggest legs in the league.
“I think the kicker that I most identify with would probably be Justin Tucker, even though he’s a three-stepper,” Karty said. “That’s who I aspire to be. His leg speed…the ball just flies off his foot.”
“I’m not a guy who will try and just drive the shit out of the ball,” Karty said. “I think the optimal trajectory that gets me the most distance is kind of a more slow rising ball.”
One of those moonshots was a 61-yarder against Cal last season, which he put through the uprights with room to spare. Although it didn’t contribute much to the actual result – Stanford was down by six with just a few seconds left in regulation – it still showcased Karty’s elite leg talent, especially considering that, according to him, he didn’t even hit a good ball.“I actually toed it a lot. I honestly thought it was going to be short for a while,” Karty said. “If I connected with that kick for real, it probably would’ve gone another five or ten yards. It was really high; I had almost four seconds of hang, which for a field goal is kind of crazy. I got under the ball by accident.”
He continued entailing his leg talent by saying that he can make a 70-yard kick with a gust of wind in “decent conditions”. He also said that on one particular day, he made a 65-yarder in one direction, turned around and hit a 65-yarder in the other direction.
“He has great ball height, great range, just as much as anyone in the world,” Karty said when I asked him to put together a quick scouting report on himself. “Can kick touchbacks at a very high percentage. High hang time, can pin ‘em deep if he wants to. But all while doing this, makes it look very effortless with his technique.”
Looking at his statistics, Karty’s scouting report is incredibly accurate. Once you make your way through his gargantuan pile of awards and accolades, you’ll find another pile of elite numbers. This past season, 44/54 of his kickoffs were touchbacks, and 11/23 of his field goal makes were from 40+ yards. He also had a streak of 26 made field goals in a row dating back to 2022 that was snapped this season. Not only was Karty splitting the uprights and preventing kick returns consistently, he was absolutely crushing the ball, too.
Karty said technique has been tweaked and bettered over the years, and he credited a good chunk of his development to Dan Orner, a kicking coach based in Charlotte who started working with Karty when he was an underclassmen in high school.
“I emphasize standing tall, don’t want to crunch too much,” Karty said of his kicking technique. “I emphasize swinging up with a big extension at the target and trying to get a lot of momentum downfield where I’m aiming.”
“The only thing that’s changed in the last few years is when I got to college, I changed from a three-step kicker to a two-step kicker.”
When he said that, I became perplexed. I’d never heard of two-step and three-step kickers before. It was then that something amazing happened: Karty recognized that I was perplexed. He saw total confusion on my face and did the best thing he could have possibly done in that situation: he explained it to me.
It’s actually a really simple concept. Like, really simple. A three-step kicker (if they’re a right-footed one) takes their first step with their left foot, their second step with their right foot and their third step with their left foot. A two-step kicker would take their first step with their right foot and their second step with their left foot. So, for example, Brandon Aubrey is a three-step kicker, and Graham Gano is a two-step kicker. Aubrey’s first step is with his left foot, and Gano’s is with his right.
“I just kind of cut that stuff out immediately,” Karty said of him subtracting a step from his kicking form. “It definitely took some time to get adjusted, getting rid of an entire step out of my field goal technique. The reason for it is to basically eliminate a variable. Like, if you’re taking an extra step, sometimes it could be an inch, sometimes it could be three inches, and you’d be ending up in a different spot every time.”
The change is very understandable. Kicking is all about repetition, and ending up in a different spot every time is not repetition. The extra step also allows the opposition more time to block a kick. For example, here’s a compilation of blocked kicks that was made almost seven years ago. You might notice that, in most of the clips, the kicker getting their kick blocked took three steps. When Alabama’s Terence Cody pulled off the “Rocky Block” in 2009? Tennessee kicker Daniel Lincoln took three steps. The same can be said about other famous blocked field goal touchdowns like Grant Haley’s against Ohio State in 2016 and Lance Austin’s against Florida State the year before.
Speaking of rough kicking moments, Karty also talked about the difficulty of being a kicker and how different their in-game lives are from most of their teammates.
“Part of why it’s so difficult to be a kicker is you only get one opportunity at a time,” Karty said. “Back at Stanford, we called ourselves snipers. They get one opportunity to make the shot, and if they miss, they won’t get another opportunity.”
“In a whole game, I could get 10 field goal attempts, I could get zero field goal attempts. It’s out of my control. But for each individual attempt, I want to treat it as if it’s my only attempt and try to make the most out of it.”
That sentiment showed in both a positive and slightly negative light for Karty at the Senior Bowl. He made a handful of 50+ yarders with ease, like this one that was right down the middle.
However, Karty did miss a 61-yarder wide right, but even so, it had plenty of distance.
Overall, it was a stellar week for Karty, who did in fact showcase that he can kick the shit out of the ball.