ELKS' MENGEL POUNDING PUNTS PROFICIENTLY
Journeyman hoping Edmonton will be a place to call home
Trotting out your punter is never an ideal situation. It means things didn’t exactly go according to plan on offence.
But when the punter does the trotting on a big booming leg belonging to Matt Mengel, at least the Edmonton Elks have no small consolation of bringing in the Canadian Football League’s leading punter to send the ball back to the opposition.
And he’s been doing it better than anyone else this season, averaging 51.8 yards per punt over the two games since taking over for Sergio Castillo and his 41-yard punt average.
“Yeah, he can hit it and he did some good things the other night. He punted the ball well,” said Elks head coach and general manager Chris Jones. “He’s a talent, that’s why he’s on the roster.”
Mengel turned heads as soon as he arrived at Commonwealth Stadium, where he made short work of booting the ball into the loudspeaker suspended 100 feet above midfield.
“I’ve hit it one-time in practice, so far,” said Mengel, who is rumoured to be the only one to have achieved the feat since seven-time Grey Cup champion Hank Ilesic. “I think the (Elks) media guy wanted to do that with me this week, get me hitting it. But Garth Brooks took over our whole stadium, so maybe next week.”
Forget Friends in Low Places, Mengel is all about sending the ball sky high and his coverage team deep downfield, with hang time to spare. Mengel comes to the Elks fresh off a stint in the inaugural United States Football League season in Birmingham, Alabama, after spending last season on the practice roster of the Montreal Alouettes.
“It’s been a very smooth transition,” said the 28-year-old University of California, Los Angeles product. “My coaching staff has made sure that I’ve been put in the most comfortable positions as possible to let me succeed.
And it’s working.”
It hasn’t all been smooth, of course. A botched snap while holding for a field-goal attempt in his CFL debut against Saskatchewan two weeks ago led to Castillo tossing him the ball just in time to get tackled to the turf. It was Mengel’s welcome to the CFL moment, as he had the wind knocked out of him.
“We tried to draw them offside. I called it and I peeked over and saw someone move, but they didn’t jump offside, and I went to reset it but he had snapped it already,” Mengel said. “It was just a miscommunication.
“I was yelling at Sergio to punt the ball but he actually passed it to me, so I felt like a football player for a 10th of a second and just got absolutely crushed.”
His ball carrying skills can be forgiven. A free agent the past six years, Mengel’s daily regimen has consisted of training, lifting, kicking and punting
“Just determination, discipline and drive,” said the resident of San Pedro, Calif. “A good support system at home. My parents, my wife’s parents. My wife, in general. We’ve got a kid at home and she holds it down with a full-time job. She helps pay the bills and she allows me to pursue my dream.
“And I’m hoping this is the ticket, you know? I’m hoping this is a home where I can stay and the only reason I leave is because of the NFL.”
At first glance, the 6-foot-3, 227-pounder wears a black football cleat to plant with his left foot, and a yellow soccer cleat to connect.
“For feel on the ball,” Mengel explained. “I’m coming from Montreal and the (USFL’S Philadelphia) Stars, and I have a bunch of red cleats in there. These are the only yellow cleats I have.”
He grew up playing the other football, spending 16 years on soccer pitches.
“We had an eight-man football team and I went out to just kick balls,” Mengel recounted. “They were like, ‘You’re big, you’re playing other positions.’ So, I played other positions for my high school.
“From there, I thought I was kind of done with sports and would join the military, but a buddy of mine talked me into going to junior college (Long Beach Community College). And the best decision I ever made was listening to him.”
It led to a full ride at UCLA, but it didn’t exactly feel like living the dream after that, journeying around the football world — a workout with the NFL’S Jacksonville Jaguars, the Saskatchewan Roughriders sniffing around, signing with the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League in 2020 before everything got shut down by COVID-19, joining Montreal, getting drafted in the first round by a Stars team that ended up cutting him, back to Montreal for camp and now he’s in Edmonton.
“It got real tough for a little bit just trying to find a home and trying to get out there,” he said. “I did really well but nothing really caught and life just started taking its course.
“I love it here. I just want to call a place a home. I’m tired of bouncing all over the place.”
If he keeps bouncing them off the Commonwealth speakers, he might not have to worry about that much longer.