Wednesday February 2, 2011 was a great day for many
kicking specialists across the country and that included at least four of my kicking clients:
Nathan Renfro,
Jackson Redditt,
Greg Colquitt, and
Phillip Houston.
Nathan Renfro, pictured with his parents (above), signed a full scholarship to the University of Maryland.
National Signing Day has been a wild ride for the
Renfro family and I am couldn't be more pleased with how it all worked out for Nathan.
I remember talking with Nathan's mom, Mitzi, back in May of last year. We talked about Nathan getting lessons that Summer, but I also explained to her a little bit about the
recruiting process for kicking specialists. We talked about a game plan for Nathan as far as university camps and scholarship camps.
He was able to have lots of success at the
kicking camps across the country, which set him up with many opportunities going into the Fall.
At one point he had offers from Northwestern, Central Michigan, Maryland, and Tennessee Tech.
Nathan took Official Visits to Maryland and Florida State. After taking his visits, Nathan decided to make a commitment for a preferred walk on spot at Florida State University. Once he made the commitment to Florida State then Maryland came back with a scholarship offer.
It didn't take Nathan long to respectfully
decommit from Florida State and accept the scholarship offer from Maryland. He will be competing to be the starting punter at Maryland in the Fall.
Jackson Redditt, pictured with his parents and coaches (above), also went through some drama this recruiting season before signing with UT-Martin on National Signing Day.
I started working with Jackson in May of last year and I have helped guide them through the recruiting process.
This Summer Jackson went through the kicking camp circuit and performed well. He followed the
summer of kicking camps up with a great senior season at Wilson Central.
He made the most of his opportunities in high school. Unfortunately it was tough for him to get a lot of notoriety because his team was not very successful, which means a limited number of field goal attempts and kickoffs.
Even with limited opportunities he was named one of the
top kickers in Tennessee and was selected to the
Tennessean's All
Midstate 1st Team. He hit field goals of 56, 50, and 47 this season and kicked 18 of 22 kickoffs into the endzone for touchbacks.
This month
Tusculum and UT-Martin started to heavily recruit him and Jackson was torn between going to a Division I
FCS School or accept a walk on spot at
MTSU.
Jackson decided on the night before Signing Day to take the
scholarship offer at UT-Martin and he will be competing for the kickoff and field goal jobs this upcoming season.
Next up is
Greg Colquitt. I have known and worked with Greg for the past two years and I have played with both his cousins, Dustin and
Britton, in college at the University of Tennessee.
It is fortuitous that just last May I went to
Maryville High School to work with Greg and the Special Teams Coach from Clemson came to the school to work him out. Greg performed very well in front of the coach and almost 9 months later he accepted a priority walk on spot over at Clemson.
Originally Greg had committed to Tennessee Tech, but he decided on going to a bigger school and to attempt to earn a scholarship as a walk on.
He comes from a great family and I am very excited to see what Greg does in the near future for the Clemson Tigers.
Finally there is
Phillip Houston. I met and worked with Phillip the past two Summer's while doing
kicking lessons in Memphis.
Coincidentally Phillip goes to Harding Academy and on National Signing Day he signed papers to go to Harding University.
He came to
Hendersonville, TN to get some follow up lessons in December before his workout at Harding University and he did exceptional at the workout!
Phillip is a very polite and hard working guy and I couldn't be more pleased that he has this opportunity to continue doing something that he loves at the next level.
Even though I am out in Arizona training for PRO football, I am never too far away from my kicking clients. I am ecstatic with the success of this class of
kickers in Tennessee and I look forward to seeing what opportunities
kicking and punters in Tennessee will have next year.
