Southern Cal kicker, holder share in big moments
Before Chase McGrath and his father, Greg, walked into the University of Southern California football offices last spring, they made a plan. On the off chance coaches offered him a spot on the roster, McGrath planned to accept. It did not matter that he had a scholarship offer from Army and a handful of walk-on spots at other Power Five schools. McGrath had to be a Trojan.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, McGrath grew up an avid USC fan. He attended Mater Dei High, a football factory in Santa Ana that doubles as a pipeline to USC football, known best for sending major quarterback prospects including Matt Leinart and Matt Barkley on to the Trojans.
So when head coach Clay Helton wandered into the room 45 minutes after Chase and Greg had sat down with special-teams coach John Baxter to discuss McGrath’s future and Helton mentioned they had a spot for him, McGrath didn’t hesitate.
“This is a kid that had USC on his heart,” Helton said. “I’m giving my best recruiting sales pitch, telling him he’d have a home here, and he goes, ‘Coach, I’m in!’ ”
“Gosh,” Helton laughed, “I wish they were all that easy.”
McGrath never doubted USC was where he was supposed to be, even though walking on brings uncertainty. “I thought of it like this: You go to USC to be great,” McGrath said. “So if I could go there and compete to be great, I was going to.”
Common throughout college football, walk-on specialists typically receive notoriety because they screw up and cost their team a game. It’s not often that a walkon kicker is afforded the same adoration of a five-star quarterback or receiver. But Monday morning on USC’s campus, less than 48 hours after he booted a 43-yard field goal at the Coliseum to close out a dramatic 27-24 double-overtime win against Texas, McGrath got a taste of what it’s like to be the Big Man On Campus.
Standing on the corner of campus waiting to cross the street, McGrath noticed a school bus packed with young kids approaching. He didn’t think anything of it — until a kid hung out the window, pointed at McGrath and started screaming. Suddenly, dozens of camera phones appeared, as students cheered for him and gave him the “Fight On!” sign, yelling their congrats.
Perhaps more impressive than McGrath’s sudden success — many anticipated problems, or at least inconsistency, with USC’s kicking game going into the 2017 season — and newfound fame is the walk-on theme in the Trojans’ three last major kicks.
Besides McGrath’s heroics, walk-on Jake Olson became the feel-good story of the 2017 season in Week 1 when the blind long snapper took the field for an extra point against Western Michigan. Olson’s story, from die-hard USC
fan and cancer survivor to Trojans football player, has been well documented since he first appeared on SportsCenter in 2009. He was led onto the field by another walkon, holder Wyatt Schmidt, who has held for three big kicks dating to last season: McGrath’s winner last week, Olson’s long snap and USC’s 46-yard field goal with no time on the clock on Jan. 1 to win the Rose Bowl against Penn State.
Schmidt had his own circuitous route to USC. After graduating from high school in Minnesota, Schmidt took a gap year to play a season of junior hockey in hopes of landing a Division I scholarship in that sport.
But midway through the season in Brookings, S.D., Schmidt decided he missed football and the traditional college experience and
called his former kicking coach.
Though he also had a handful of preferred walk-on offers — including from Dartmouth, where his brother, Foley, was an all-conference kicker from 2009 to 2011 — Schmidt wound up in Los Angeles, attracted to the sunshine, football tradition and academic prestige.
He arrived at USC with hopes of becoming the Trojans starting placekicker but soon found himself relegated to holding status.
“It’s not glamorous at all, but I didn’t want to be the backup, so it was about, what can I do to get on the field?” said Schmidt, a redshirt sophomore. “Our former quarterback Max Browne asked me one time, ‘ Why do you do this? It’s a lose-lose situation: Either you do well and no one sees it, or you mess up and everyone hates you.’ ”
Schmidt doesn’t see it that way, telling Brown he’d found a passion for holding. Plus, he points out, he gets a front-row seat to some of the biggest moments at one of the biggest programs in college football. “I had the best view of Chase’s kick the other night,” he said. “I’m one of the first people who knew it was going in.”
He was also the last person to join the celebration. As McGrath booked it downfield whooping and hollering, Schmidt stayed behind. “I’m too old for that,” Schmidt explained.
“We’ve been very fortunate, because not only have these guys helped us build a brotherhood and build our team, but they’ve also helped us on the field,” Helton said, pointing out other successful walk-ons in USC football history, most notably current Packers linebacker Clay Matthews.
For now, all three — McGrath, Schmidt and Olson — remain walk-ons, which means they pay for books, tuition and living expenses while teammates cash scholarship checks every month. But Schmidt doesn’t ever feel that he or the other walk-ons are less valuable than any other Trojan.
“As a walk-on, people often think you fit a stereotype — that you’re not good,” Schmidt said. “For people like Jake and Chase to show the world that walk-ons are talented, maybe that means we’ll all get recognized more.”
Know of a good walk-on story in college sports? Lindsay Schnell wants to hear it. Email her at LSchnell@usatoday.com