Tulsa having one of the best tandems of returning place kicking and punting specialists in college football is made much more interesting considering neither played American football before coming to TU.

Zack Long was a soccer player in high school. Lachlan Wilson played Australian Rules Football.

Long had an incredible year last year, connecting on 22 of 23 field goals (95.7 percent), with a career long of 50 yards, and made 35 of 36 extra points.

"More than pretty good I think," Montgomery said of how good Long has been. "It's a tremendous story. A guy that's never played football in his life, and comes in here, walks on, and has really, just diligently, worked at his craft. He's made himself into the guy that he is."

Long, a 6-foot-2, 177-pound senior from Eureka HS in Pacific, Missouri, walked on to the football team in the spring of 2019. He handled the kickoff duties in 2019 and 2020. Long made 12 of 15 field goals in 2020, being picked 2nd team All-AAC. He subsequently earned a scholarship.

After missing a 40-plus yarder in his only attempt in 2019, he has come back to make 34 of 38 career field goals (89.5 percent). He has made 60 of 62 extra point attempts.

"I saw a stat the other day that he is the most consistent kicker coming back in this class," Montgomery said. "I'm really excited and proud of Zack. He’s done a tremendous job for us.

"I think he's an all-conference player. I think he's an All-American type player. I think he should be in all of those talks when it comes to awards and everything else when it comes to Zack."

Wilson, a 6-3, 194-pound punter from Melbourne, Australia, is in his fourth year at Tulsa. Like Long, he joined the football team in 2019. Both will be 24 years old when the season starts.

Wilson's experience in Australian Rules Football, which requires, among many other things, players to be able to kick the ball while running, allows him to be a versatile punter for the Golden Hurricane.

"Really, I think Lachlan deserves to be on a lot of those watch lists. He can just do so many unique things," Montgomery said of Wilson being one of the best punters in the nation. "He has such a powerful leg. He can project it to where he wants it to go. He can place it. He can make it spin in certain ways where it's going to do this and do that."

Wilson averaged 45.7 yards per punt on 61 punts last year, with a long of 67 yards. A total of 21 were inside the 20-yard-line, and 19 resulted in a fair catch. After redshirting in 2019, Wilson averaged 42.9 yards on 42 punts in 2020 in his first year of American football, with 14 inside the 20 and 15 that were fair caught.

"He gives us the ability to do more things in our punt unit. Whether we want to start rugbying it a little bit and rolling him and doing some things like that, or being more of an American style punter, he can handle those duties," Montgomery said. "So the flexibility and uniqueness of his talents allow us to do some more things from the punt unit."