Kicking can be as much of a head game as golf. Or shooting in basketball.
The skill and ability can be there, but after that, it is almost all about confidence.
Tulsa will have a new kicker and punter handling things this year. How they perform, especially at place kicker, will go a long way in determining if Tulsa wins or loses close games.
Tyler Tipton will, almost certainly, be the new place kicker. He has handled kickoffs the last two seasons for the Golden Hurricane.
"Right now, he's set to be the kicker," said new Tulsa coach Kevin Wilson. "But I think he needs to be better in consistency with placement kicks."
After relying for years on walk-ons who can develop into scholarship kickers, with sometimes bad results (see 2019), TU signed Tipton in the spring of 2020.
Having only played football in his last year in high school after being a soccer player, Tipton, a 6-foot-2, 172-pound junior from Little Elm, Texas, came to Tulsa and won the kicking job in the fall of 2020.
Tipton's first field goal attempt in the season opener at OSU sailed through the uprights. Unfortunately for Tipton, a timeout had been called, and his next and only field goal attempt from short range missed. He made his only extra point attempt in the game.
Walk-on Zack Long, who was already handling the kickoff duties, took over as the place kicker in the OSU game, and was mostly terrific from that point on for the next three years.
Tipton took over the kickoff duties midway through the 2021 season but has been waiting his turn to be the place kicker since then while Long earned a scholarship.
With Long gone, it is Tipton's time.
Possessing a strong leg, kickoffs improved when Tipton took over for Long in 2021, as he averaged 59.6 yards per kickoff with 14 touchbacks in 46 kickoffs. Long averaged 56.3 on 26 kickoffs and 4 touchbacks in 2021. In 2020, Long averaged 55.4 yards with 3 touchbacks on 45 kickoffs.
In 2022, Tipton averaged 58.7 yards and had 30 touchbacks on 67 kickoffs. By comparison, TU opponents averaged 62.7 yards and had 45 touchbacks on 73 kickoffs.
Connor Bryan is a 5-9, 173-pound sophomore walk-on from Klein HS in Spring, Texas, who is a kicker and a punter. Bryan and Scott Stanford, a 6-foot-0, 190-pound redshirt freshman from Seven Lakes HS in Katy, Texas, handled the punting duties in the spring.
But Australian Angus Davies is, in all likelihood, going to be the punter in the fall. The Australian Rules Football player arrived in Tulsa this summer. Davies is a 6-1, 195-pound freshman from Torquay, Australia, which is a seaside resort in Victoria.
"We brought in an Aussie. We didn't bring him in here to be a backup," Wilson said of Davies. "We had an Aussie at Ohio State and signed one at Indiana. We tested his leg, and this guy is better than both of those guys.
