Healthy kicker’s confidence audible
Sean Nuernberger has his thump back.
It’s the telltale sound that a kicker is swinging freely and striking the ball with authority. It’s something Nuernberger was missing the past two seasons while watching a couple of transfers handle the kicking duties for Ohio State, even though he had been the kicker of record on OSU’s 2014 national championship team.
But the thump has returned, and coach Urban Meyer can hear it.
“He’s hitting it now,” Meyer said Monday. “In practice, he hit a 57-yarder the other day.”
Through four games this season, in fact, Nuernberger is 7 of 7 on field-goal tries and 18 of 18 on extrapoint attempts. Beyond
statistical perfection, most of those kicks have been on point, too.
“Some of the ones that I’ve made, I can get a lot better hits,” Nuernberger said. “But I think I’ve gotten a lot better at getting through the ball on every single one, even on some that I’ve mis-hit a little bit — they’ve still come off pretty well with good height.”
Three years ago, Nuernberger was something of a phenom coming out of a Kentucky high school and earning the No. 1 job for the Buckeyes. But in 2015 while he was dealing with a groin-muscle pull, he watched Duke transfer Jack Willoughby do most of the kicking.
Slow to heal going into last season, Nuernberger saw Tyler Durbin — a onetime soccer player at James Madison who had never kicked in a real football game — take the job. Even though Durbin struggled late in the year, missing 4 of 5 fieldgoal attempts in the final two games — making only 1 of 3 against Michigan and missing twice against Clemson — Nuernberger was not summoned.
The payoff now is that he feels fully healed from the injury that robbed him of his confidence.
“When I started to kick again last year, every kick you’re kind of scared; you don’t want to hurt yourself,” Nuernberger said. “You just don’t ever kick 100 percent, right? It’s always in your subconscious mind.”
Now, though, he is kicking with authority.
“I’ve kicked long enough with no injury, no pain, to where every single ball, I can go after and really try to hit the ball hard and not really worry about anything,” he said.
Meyer indicated that what helped the injury bug bite Nuernberger after his freshman season was a bit of the kicker’s fault.
“He was a little boy when he first got here and acted like a little boy and didn’t prepare like a grown man,” Meyer said. “I think his family and this program have done wonders for him because he’s a grown man. He’s really handling it.”
Nuernberger feels the same way, that time has been his friend.
“I can definitely handle it now. I’m a lot more composed when I go out there, especially compared to the last time I kicked in 2015 or whenever that was,” Nuernberger said. “I feel completely different. Back then I was kind of nervous running out there.
“Now I feel like I’ve been at Ohio State for 12 years. … It feels a lot better.”
True freshman Sam McCollum was prepared to do a lot of observing when he picked out a choice spot on the sideline two years ago for his first college- football game.
Miami University was amid a wholesale rebuilding job under then-coach Chuck Martin, and an option for McCollum was to redshirt.
One series into a game against Presbyterian, McCollum was running onto the fi eld to play right guard after a starter was injured. Thoughts raced through his brain, and playing for Dublin Coffman seemed light-years in the past.
“I went in there openminded, and I was even OK with redshirting, but I was thrown into the fire my first game,” he said. “Fortunately, Collin Buchanan, our right tackle, helped me out. It was just time to go and play.”
McCollum played well enough to get his fi rst start the following week against, gulp, Wisconsin. The Badgers had standout linebackers T.J. Watt and Joe Schobert. Both are now in the NFL.
“That was kind of surreal just walking into (Camp Randall) Stadium,” McCollum said. “Attendance was something like 75,000, and I never anticipated that. It was a great experience. My heart defi nitely was racing."
Miami lost 58-0 that day, but McCollum earned another start, and another, and another, until he totaled 10 on the season. McCollum started all 13 games last season for a team that became the first in NCAA history to lose its fi rst six games and win its final six.
Miami earned a share of the Mid-American Conference East Division title with Ohio University and went to its first bowl game since 2010. Its 37-yard field- goal attempt was blocked with five seconds left, sealing a 17- 16 loss to Mississippi State in the St. Petersburg Bowl.
This season, McCollum has moved to left guard for a team that is 2-2 going after a 31- 14 victory against Central Michigan. The next step is a game Saturday at Notre Dame.
“It was a transition going from righty to lefty, but I did play the left side at Coffman,” McCollum said. “Coffman really helped me get ready for this. We played a great schedule, and our weight program there is like a college.” — Saunders, a senior from Africentric, has 21 receptions for 268 yards and four touchdowns this season. He also returned a punt 87 yards for a touchdown.
— Bailey, a sophomore linebacker from Hilliard Davidson, has 24 tackles, one interception and one fumble recovery. He was chosen all-academic All-Big Ten in the spring. — Banks, a junior defensive lineman from Beechcroft, has 15 tackles in three games.