During his tenure as UCLA coach, Rick Neuheisel once proclaimed, “Punting is winning.” Putting aside for a moment how comments like that will kill your recruiting efforts for skill position players, it placed an emphasis on the guys who can flip the field position for you.
Through the years, guys like Ryan Stonehouse (Colorado State), Ryan Allen, (two-time Ray Guy Award winner at Louisiana Tech), Mitch Wishnowsky, (Utah), and JK Scott (Alabama), have played critical rolls in their respective team’s success.
But over the last few years, the punting game in college football has taken a dramatic change. A guy standing 10 yards behind the snapper and looking to get off a high, booming, spiral is no longer a given in the college game. There are now more veterans of Australian Rules Football, who are changing the most staid part of the game.
UCLA’s Wade Lees has taken the change in the game to a whole new level. Not only is he a veteran of Aussie Rules Football. At the age of 31, he is a veteran of life in general. Lees has put the “grad” in grad transfer. He has a bachelor’s degree in Business Sports Management from Deakins University in Australia. In his three years playing for Maryland, he earned two college degrees. He got a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Media Studies, and his Master’s of Science in Business Administration. At UCLA, he will be earning his Master’s in Education. He is also the only player on the team who is married, having wed Caitlin in Hawaii this past Summer.
Lees was visiting the US six years ago when he saw fellow Aussie Cameron Johnston on TV punting for Ohio State. His future plans immediately started evolving in his head.
He played at Maryland from 2016-2018. He was twice on the Ray Guy Watch List. That came from stats like a 48-yard punting average in 2018, and a 67-yard kick versus Michigan State that same year.
With a year of eligibility left, he and Caitlin went back home to Australia in December to mull over their future. There had been turmoil in College Park his last year there. Jordan McNair died from heat stroke during training camp, and head coach D.J. Durkin was put on administrative leave and then eventually fired. Lees knew there would be wholesale changes during the off-season, (Mike Locksley was named head coach in December and assembled a new staff). He says he knew he was not going to stay at Maryland and wanted to try life on the West Coast. “I was going to try to get to L.A. USC already had an Australian punter, (Ben Griffiths), so I reached out to UCLA.”
With no punter returning with significant experience, Lees found a new home. While he has acknowledged his wife would like to go back to Australia at some point, he says he is hoping Los Angeles, with its closer proximity, (as opposed to Maryland), might turn into a good compromise.
From a football standpoint, Lees is having his best year ever in terms of punting for average. He is getting 42.7 yards per kick. But he is also on pace for only about 58 kicks, thanks in part to Chip Kelly’s proclivity to go for it on fourth down. That would be Lee’s career low for attempts.
By best count, there are now about 30 Aussie Rules style punters in the FBS schools. There are approximately another 35 at the FCS level. The attraction, from a football strategy standpoint, is that you are no longer counting on that high hang time in order to give your coverage team time to get downfield to make a play. In Aussie Rules football, players are running and kicking. That makes the kickers in the college game a little more versatile. They are able to move around, and kick on the run. It also means they are kicking to a spot, and making the returner do more work just to get to the ball.
Because of how they are used to both running and kicking in their native game, they can aim right but kick left, or kick the ball with accuracy to a specific spot on the field, and maybe eliminate the big return. Many are adept at seeing where the return man is and adjusting on the move to kick it away from him.
It is also no longer a niche concept in college football. It is becoming a cottage industry. Nathan Chapman had a very brief run in the NFL in the early 2000’s. He then returned home to open a kicking development program in 2007, called Prokick Australia. The stated goal is to turn Aussie Rules football players into American football kickers. The company web site claims to have put 75 Australian rules players into US colleges in its 12 years. Utah’s Wishnowsky, who won the Ray Guy Award in 2018, is a Prokick alum.
Lees says there are more to come in terms of Aussie Rules players making the jump to American college football. “I think there are 40 or 50 guys now training with them, (Prokick Australia). So, they are coming in hot, and they are sort of putting all American punters on notice. They are doing well.” Lees says there are even more of what he referred to as hidden gems. “They are too scared or not ready yet to make that leap of faith and move across to the other side of the world. There are so many more guys out there that could do it.”
The Australian kickers in the US have become a community unto themselves according to Lees. “I trained with them and we keep in close contact with each other. We have a big group message where we all talk to each other.” He says with his games being on a west coast schedule he gets to see some of the early games and some of his compatriots on the east coast, “launch balls out of the pocket. It’s good to see them. It’s good fun.”
He has even created his own You Tube channel that helps demonstrate the “Australian Pathway To Punting.” It serves a dual purpose. Aside from teaching, it allows Lees to get comfortable with on-camera time. He has taken to the idea of working in media when his playing days are over. “I’m not young so I can’t stick around for like four or five years and anticipate and just wait and hope it happens (a future in the NFL). So, it’s good to have something else there.”
For now, he is waiting and hoping for his one big shot that would put him on TV, as in the network highlight reels. Last season he completed a 15-yard pass on a fake punt. “I’ve got the best QBR, (quarterback rating), in Maryland history,” Lees joked. He says he has given notice to the UCLA quarterbacks. “I tell them I am the best quarterback on the team,” he claims with a wry chuckle.
He contends that his dream would be a fake punt from deep in his own end of the field. “I don’t mind rolling out or tucking and going for a run; stiff-arm a few guys and run 100 yards. That’s what I dream of.” Then reality sets in for a moment. “I think I am too slow. I’d probably get like five yards and get swamped by 12 guys.”
Time and age tends to make things like that happen to all of us.
Aussie Rules Kicking Main Photo: UCLA punter Wade Lees against the University of Arizona earlier this season. (Photo courtesy Arizona Daily Star).
