Two kickers and two punters were in Mobile, Al. this past week. I caught up with them to talk about their time at the Reese’s Senior Bowl.
On the surface, it might seem like the life of a kicker/punter at an All-Star showcase might be one of leisure. You just kick the football a handful of times, and that’s most of your day.
Wrong.
Right before the third day of practice at the Senior Bowl (around 9:30 a.m. CT), I saw Stanford kicker Joshua Karty, Iowa punter Tory Taylor and Wisconsin long snapper Peter Bowden riding on a golf cart just outside of Hancock-Whitney Stadium at the University of South Alabama where the Senior Bowl was being held. Karty’s hair was sticking to his forehead, while Taylor and Bowden looked pretty tired themselves.
“There’s really no time to be bored here,” Karty told me on Wednesday.
It was definitely a busy week for the ball boomers, and I was able to catch up with all of them at the Senior Bowl.
Will Reichard, kicker, Alabama
There were two kickers present in Mobile: one was Stanford’s Joshua Karty, who made 41 of his last 44 field goals to end his college career. The other kicker in Mobile was Alabama’s Will Reichard, who is literally college football’s all-time points leader with 547. There were a lot of prestigious feet in Mobile!
The Hoover, Al. native passed former Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds for the record this past season, and he’s looking to maintain a high level of success in the NFL both as a player and a teammate.
“I just want to prove that I’m a consistent kicker,” Reichard told me. “I have good leg talent, strong between the ears. I’m a good leader on the field, but also just trying to show with these interviews the type of person I am.”
Consistency is definitely something that’s defined Reichard’s career up to this point. At Hoover High School, Reichard made 27 of his 31 career kicks, made all 109 extra point attempts and sent 99% of his kickoffs for touchbacks.
He continued to shine at Alabama. The only major rough patch he hit was during his freshman season, when injuries kept him out for the rest of the season after Week 5. After that, however, Reichard was one of the most accurate kickers in college football for most of the rest of his career. He made just 78.6 percent of his kicks in 2021, but in 2020, 2022 and 2023, he crossed the 84 percent mark every time, including a perfect 14/14 season in 2020.
Since 2019, Reichard said that he feels like a much improved kicker, both physically and mentally.
“Experience plays a part in that. I think I’m bigger, stronger, can kick the ball further. I think I’m more mature. I think I have a stronger mentality,” Reichard said.
Part of that can certainly be attributed to playing in raucous SEC environments for his entire collegiate career, especially at Alabama, whose games sell out more often than not.
“You have sold out stadiums every time you play, especially in Alabama,” Reichard said. “I think it’s definitely helped me.”
As an NFL prospect, Reichard certainly has intriguing traits. He was consistently one of the best at preventing kick returns, as his touchback percentage always ranked in the upper echelon of kickers since 2021. Speaking of kicking powerfully, Reichard is Alabama’s all-time leader in career 50+ yard field goals with 10, including two in the Tide’s CFP semis loss to Michigan. He made kicks of 50 and 52 yards, and all five of his kickoffs were touchbacks.
“I would notice that I’m very aggressive in my swing,” Reichard said when asked to give a scouting report on himself. “I would notice that I hit pretty much the same ball, very consistent at hitting the same ball.”
That consistency carried over to Mobile. He did miss a 56-yarder in the game on Saturday, but even when it doinked off the right upright, it had plenty of distance. Throughout the week, Reichard hit nearly every kick perfectly, and from long range, too.
Using a draft pick on a kicker hasn’t worked too well recently. Plenty of kickers that’ve been taken in recent drafts have flamed out; four of the last six kickers that have been drafted (Chad Ryland, Anders Carlson, Cade York, Justin Rohrwasser) have struggled to start their careers (Rohrwasser isn’t even in the league). It also doesn’t help that one of the best kickers in the league (Brandon Aubrey) didn’t even play organized football until 2022, and some of the other best kickers in the league weren’t even drafted – Justin Tucker, Ka’Imi Fairbairn, Cameron Dicker, Chris Boswell and several others never heard their name called.
However, despite all of the self-imposed fear-mongering I just laid out, Reichard has definitely put together a profile that’s worthy of a selection come late April.
Tory Taylor, punter, Iowa
Arguably the most well-known special teamer heading into the Senior Bowl, the thunder from Down Under put his punting talents on display for NFL decision-makers to see in Mobile.
Those who have followed college football closely over the past few seasons know that Taylor isn’t an ordinary punter. His legend in Iowa City ballooned for three main reasons. One is that he’s a 26-year old from Australia which, by American collegiate football standards, is cool as heck. Two is that he was on the field quite often – Iowa’s offensive ineptitude over the past couple of seasons has been well-documented, which meant more time in the spotlight for Taylor.
Third is that he was really freaking good at his job. Yes, he set a new NCAA record for most punting yards in a season in large part due to how bad Iowa was on offense, but his 2023 season average of 48.3 yards per punt and career average of 46.3 yards per punt were also NCAA records. He was also exceptional at placing the ball inside of the 20-yard line, as every one of his three seasons with the Hawkeyes saw at least a third of Taylor’s punts land inside the 20-yard line. Also, remember when Iowa beat South Dakota State in 7-3 in 2022? Taylor was arguably Iowa’s best player in that game, as eight of his 10 punts landed inside SDSU’s 20-yard line, with five of them landing inside the 10.
Although his career arc isn’t totally unprecedented – the pipeline of Australian kickers and punters to American football has grown a lot in recent years – his background combined with his punting prowess makes Taylor a shining star at a position that hasn’t historically produced shining stars.
“The biggest thing for me was just trying to get better each day,” Taylor told me after Wednesday’s practice. “And that’s really all I ever worry about.”
Taylor showed out at the Senior Bowl, albeit in perfect conditions and with no one rushing him. His kicks were flying high, far and with elite precision.
It was reminiscent of some of the NFL’s best punters right now, who Taylor mentioned as guys he respects immensely.
“AJ Cole, I think he’s very technically sound. {Mitch} Wishnowsky and {Riley} Dixon…those guys I really appreciate because being a punter, you kind of appreciate other guys and how hard they have to work to be so technically sound and to be able to perform at such a high level,” Taylor said.
It was then I asked him about the current state of punting in the NFL. Earlier this NFL season, Yahoo Sports’ Nate Tice explained how the NFL was in a golden age of punting; punters were booting pigskins further, with more curve and with more accuracy than ever before. Think of a baseball pitcher developing a 90 mile per hour knuckleball; that’s sort of like what many punters have developed now. I asked Taylor if he could think of any specific reasons why punters were so good nowadays.
What Taylor said next was very reminiscent of a scene from Ted Lasso. After getting into a debate with Rebecca about whether they’d rather they’d be a lion or a panda, Ted asks one of his players, Jamie Tartt, the same question. Looking befuddled, Tartt says “Coach, I’m me. Why would I want to be anything else?” to which Ted responds “I’m not sure you realize how psychologically healthy that actually is.”
Taylor told me that he doesn’t really worry about trends like punters being really good nowadays. Instead, he’s just focused on what he can control.
“At the end of the day, I’m never gonna be them, so I’m really just trying to be the best Tory Taylor I can be.”
Austin McNamara, punter, Texas Tech
While Taylor got the most national attention of any collegiate punter in recent memory, McNamara is a kick-butt punter himself.
For starters, McNamara told me that he actually had a full scholarship to Mizzou back in high school, something I was not previously aware of.
“It was an amazing visit,” McNamara told PowerMizzou after an official visit to Columbia in December 2018. “I had a lot of fun. Mizzou was awesome, I loved it.”
“It’s a great place. I really liked it,” McNamara said of Mizzou.
But alas, he committed to Texas Tech as one of the top-ranked punters in the class of 2019, and he turned into one of the best punters in college football during his time in Lubbock.
While saying that his biggest asset is his leg would be obvious, McNamara’s right leg is borderline bionic. He smashed numerous 60+ yard punts in his five seasons at Texas Tech, including a 74-yarder against West Virginia in 2020 that was bested two quarters later with an 87-yarder.
That leg came with him to Mobile. According to Zebra Technologies, McNamara launched a punt that went 76.1 yards and hung in the air for 5.32 seconds on the second day of practice, which are both ridiculous numbers. Think of Kawhi Leonard’s game-winning shot against the 76ers in the 2019 NBA playoffs – McNamara’s punt from Day 2 was in the air for about as long as from the time Leonard touched the ball until it hit the rim.
It wasn’t just that punt, however. McNamara was cooking all week.
He certainly looked on par with the best punters in the NFL, who McNamara said he watches frequently.
“AJ Cole with the Raiders, I watch a lot of him…we have similar body types and swings,” McNamara said. “Tommy Townsend with the Chiefs, Jack Fox with the Lions…I try to watch as much as I can.”
When asked to give his own scouting report, he mentioned something unique.
“I played basketball in high school, so I have good hand-eye coordination,” McNamara said. “I have a very smooth swing.”
Something else about McNamara that’s also unique is that he’s very tall. He’s listed at 6’4” on Texas Tech’s official website, and he said that’ll help him greatly at the next level.
“That’s definitely a big advantage, having an easier target to hit for your snapper,” McNamara said.
Joshua Karty, kicker, Stanford
I already wrote a lengthy feature on Karty (which you can read here). It was a fantastic conversation about his career as well as the ins and outs of kicking, so I would highly encourage you to read it.