Wilhoit's Junior Standouts

Over the past two months of working with kicking specialists in Tennessee I have worked with kickers and punters of all different ages.

I have done lessons with guys who are my age (27 years old) and kids who are as young as 10 years old. Working with specialists who vary so much in age has certainly helped me improve as a kicking coach because you figure out different ways to reach different kicking specialists. It really makes being a kicking coach such an interesting job because every punter and kicker is a new challenge.

I honestly was surprised and excited by the talent that I saw throughout the state. Over the past few weeks I have written blogs about the college and high school senior kicking specialists across the state of Tennessee.

For this blog I want to acknowledge the junior talent across the state.

Ben Ogle (pictured above) is the starting kicker at Greeneville High School and was the All State kicker for class 4A last year.

He has worked with me numerous times this Summer in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and I made a trip to Greeneville to work with his holder and long snapper.

Ben has great size and is a very talented kicker. He has range of 60 to 65 yards with a one inch tee and gets incredible height on his kicks. His kickoffs are very impressive and when he has the ability to hit them out of the endzone with hang times as high as 4.3 seconds.

I expect Ben to have great season and plan on coming to his game on September 10th against Elizabethton. I look forward to working with Ben for hopefully another 5 years!

The next kicker is George Bullock. George is one of the first kickers that I ever worked with along with Corey Acosta.

I started working with George during his freshman year and as he was growing as a kicker at the same time I was growing as a coach.

When I first started with George I didn't use video or even know how to turn on a camera. Now I use video for all my lessons and couldn't imagine not having it as a resource in coaching kickers and punters.

George has gone from a good kicker his freshman year to being one of the best kickers in the state. He hit a 52 yard field goal in a scrimmage and won the kickoff competition in Neyland Stadium last weekend with a 66 yard kickoff.

I am very proud of George and look forward to big things from him this year!

Conar Roberts is the punter/kicker for McMinn County. He will be entering his junior year and is a standout punter.

In my opinion, there are not as many pure punters across the country, which makes Conar so valuable.

The state of Tennessee was blessed this year to have 4 of the top 20 punters in the entire country but that is far away from the norm.

Conar has very good fundamentals and really seemed to like the Drop Progression Drill. If he continues on the same path he is on than he will have plenty of interest from colleges.

The final kicking specialist is Jarrett Lay. He will be entering his junior year from Oneida, TN.

Jarrett is a legitimate 6'2 and 190 pounds with a strong leg. The amazing thing about Jarrett is that he doesn't know how good he can be.

During the kicking lesson we backed up as far as 55 yards and he was kicking each kick right down the middle. Almost every kicker I work with will struggle a bit on the first day but he looked like a seasoned veteran.

I believe there are three keys to success in kicking:

1. Talent
2. Being Coachable
3. Desire

I think that Jarrett has the first two and I hope he gains the third. Once he figures out how much God-given talent he has than he can really take his game to the next level.

Overall I am very impressed the junior kickers and punters in the state of Tennessee. This season and the upcoming year of kicking camps will determine which kicking specialists receive scholarships...

Stay tuned for Monday's blog as I will be writing my On A Specialists Path on what it is like to play the opening game of a season.

Visit: www.jameswilhoitkickingcoach.com

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