Kicker Freehill coming back from blood clot in his leg

WEST LAFAYETTE — The shooting pain in Ben Freehill’s right leg deprived Purdue football’s best kicker of best asset.

Booting the football with power was so painful.

Freehill’s leg was tender to the touch, an issue he first noticed while warming up to play at Virginia Tech on Sept. 9.

“I remember my first two kicks of warm ups, I kicked them and I went up to coach (Chris Petrilli, Purdue’s special teams analyst) and it hurt,” Freehill said.

The Boilermakers (3-7) travel to Evanston,

Ill. Saturday to battle Northwestern (5-5). Kickoff at Ryan Field is set for noon (EDT).

Relying on Tylenol to offset the pain, Freehill gutted through that 24-17 victory where he was 3-for-3 on extra points and booted a 43-yard field goal.

Freehill, the redshirt senior who transferred from Oklahoma State in 2021, made 2 of 3 extra points the week after against Syracuse.

Turns out that agonizing pain was more than just your standard aches.

“When we heard blood clots for the first time as a staff, in my mind, I’m not a doctor, but it did sound like a big deal,” Purdue football coach Ryan Walters said.

Blood clots.

It was a scary diagnosis for a 22-yearold.

“Pretty much from like my knee to my ankle was completely clouded,” Freehill said.

Freehill missed four straight games and Purdue’s bye week trying to ease his way back into kicking. Then kicking on consecutive days.

Then preparing for his return at Nebraska on Oct. 28.

“As soon as it got to a point where there wasn’t any swelling, he would try to have those days where he would kick consecutively and then he was ready to go,” Walters said.

Freehill’s lone field goal try at Nebraska was doomed from the start. The timing of the snap and hold was off, leading to the attempt being blocked and returned for a touchdown.

In two games since, against Michigan and Minnesota, Freehill is 2-for-2 on field goals and 8-for-8 on extra points.

“I had to get a small surgery the week of the Ohio State game (Oct. 14) to get that done,” Freehill said.

“Ever since then, it’s been no problems. But it was super frustrating because it’s not like I twisted my ankle or something like that. I didn’t do anything out of the norm and then have something like that pop up.”