Kansas punter Tucker identifies glitch, he says

By Ryan Wood     Oct 17, 2007

Richard Gwin
Kansas punter Kyle Tucker (15) punts during warmups before facing Oklahoma State last season.

Like a broken-down automobile, punting the football with consistency is something that can be ruined with one minor glitch.

Kansas University senior Kyle Tucker, at long last, thinks he found his.

“I need to hold on to the ball longer when I’m dropping it,” Tucker said Tuesday. “Especially when you’re going into wind. There’s less room for error when you’re holding on to the ball longer. I’ve been watching film and realized it. I’ve got it figured out now.”

Tucker likely will have punting duties all to himself on Saturday, when No. 15 Kansas travels to Boulder, Colo., to take on the Colorado Buffaloes.

It’s a punter’s paradise at Folsom Field in Boulder. The thin air more than a mile above sea level puts a little oomph on every ball that’s booted.

“You get a few extra yards,” Tucker said with a smile.

Until his glitch is beaten out of his routine, he’ll take every advantage he can get. After three seasons of averaging 40.1, 42.9 and 39.2 yards per boot, Tucker is at just 36.0 yards on 19 punts this season.

It’s not all his fault – Tucker had four punts against Kansas State, all into a stiff wind Oct. 6. He also punted into 30 mile-per-hour gusts more than once in KU’s 58-10 victory against Baylor on Saturday.

“He has had to punt into the wind a lot,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “But we expect him to punt better than he is punting in the wind.”

Mangino compared it to a baseball player in a slump. To alleviate that, the Jayhawks sent backup quarterback/backup punter Kerry Meier in to boot out of KU’s own end zone against the Bears.

Meier also has pooch-punted in KU’s last two games, while the Jayhawks kept the offense on the field with Meier lined up as a quarterback.

Tucker got a grasp of his problem over the weekend and now is working the kink out. All the while, he’s trying to keep his head right through the dark times.

“It’s been frustrating so far,” said Tucker, a Ray Guy Award semifinalist in 2005. “I’m not down at all. I’m not disappointed. It’s just that I’d like to do better.

“But I think I’ve figured it out, and I have a lot of confidence going into the rest of the season. The first half’s behind us, and we’re doing great as a team. It’s exciting.”

It seems the problem areas on the Jayhawks (6-0 overall, 2-0 Big 12 Conference play) are being magnified in 2007 because, truth be told, there aren’t too many of them right now.

That’s put a little brighter light on what’s been troubling Tucker. But the hope at KU is that those struggles are on their way out.

“Anytime you’re not hitting the ball as well as you’d like, certainly he’s disappointed,” Mangino said. “But we’re not going to let him be disappointed for very long here.

“He’s proven that he can punt the ball very well. : He’ll be fine. I have a lot of confidence in him, and he’ll do well.”

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