The best kicker in college football changed his form of kicking before the season and his roommate, a three-year starting punter, has taken a new approach to mental preparation.

Not a season removed from winning the Lou Groza Award, which is given annually to college football’s best kicker, Andre Szmyt decided to move a foot closer to the ball before he kicked a field goal. Punter Sterling Hofrichter now lies on the ground of Syracuse’s locker room before a game and visualizes his punts while listening to Imagine Dragons.

Together the pair have an obsession for golf games and Syracuse barbecue not named after an extinct species. They’re two quirky kickers but they produce at a rate rarely seen from a punter-kicker duo in college football. In 2018, Szmyt won the Groza after nailing 30-of-34 field goals and with three field goals this season, leads in the nation over the last two years. Hofrichter just picked up ACC Punter of the Week following an average of 52.2 yards per punt against Clemson. He currently ranks fifth in the country in punt average (48.1 yards).

Szmyt, a redshirt sophomore, is more outgoing than his introverted roommate, redshirt senior Hofrichter. But the two have grown close and together have influenced a special teams unit that ranked first in the nation at points last season.

“We want to be known as the best special teams in the country,” Hofrichter said. “So we really focus on pushing each other to be better than we were like a week ago, a year ago.”

After finishing his redshirt freshman year as a unanimous All-American, Szmyt cut the diagonal distance from the point of contact to the start of his kicking motion by one foot — 106 inches to 94.

To those outside the kicking world, the change may seem slight. But the extra inches closer to the ball allow Szmyt to start his run to the ball later, allowing holder Nolan Cooney more time to catch, spin the laces out or adjust to a bad snap.

 

The move helps Szmyt keep his form as well, something he noted tends to break down as the season carries on. When Szmyt returned to his kicking coach following the 2018 season, his chest was bent forward during his kicks. It was a product of starting too far away and “attacking” the ball.

Now closer, his two steps are short and controlled rather long and lunging.

“Trying to stay everything compact and just controlled,” Szmyt said, “and just good form, proper form.”

Hofrichter adjusted more to the mental side of the game this offseason. This summer at a Kohl’s Professional Football Camp, known for elite specialist training, Team USA sports psychologist Marty Martinez discussed visualization and the benefits of picturing positive performance before it happens.

Before each game this season, Hofrichter plugs his Powerbeats headphones into his ears and lies on the locker room floor. The playlist includes Imagine Dragons and Boys Like Girls song “The Great Escape.” From the ground, he pictures perfect punts. He does the same when he’s on the sideline, dropping the ball on his foot nearly 500 times throughout offensive series in a game. The imagined punts come to fruition to like the lofty strikes against Clemson that led to the best single-game punt average in SU history with at least five punts.

“He’s an NFL kicker if you saw him,” Syracuse head coach Dino Babers said. “Some of the hang time that he got on some of those kids? Like O-M-G.”

As Hofricther’s grown as a punter, he’s also become increasingly interested in golfing. He started golfing often his freshman year when he learned Drumlins Country Club was free for students. On Tuesday, Hofrichter walked a full 18 holes before practice instead of using a golf cart. By the evening, he’d had walked more than six miles, per his Apple Watch. They play Golden Tee, the arcade golf game in the football facility before practices and competed in punt golf during practices over the summer.

Starting on one side of the field, the kickers punt the ball repeatedly until hitting a target, such as the crossbar. Like golf, whoever reaches the target in the least amount of strokes wins. Hofrichter doesn’t always win, either.

“We’re in Ensley, so it has the roof,” Szmyt said. “So if Sterling boots one and hits [the roof], I’ll just line it.”

Outside of football, the pair play Fortnite in their off-campus apartment and go out to eat at the Bull and Bear Roadhouse, which they believe is better than Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. Former long snapper Matt Keller turned Hofrichter onto the spot where both Szmyt and his punter rave about the cornbread.

Before last year’s Western Michigan game, Szmyt began what’s become a superstition for the kicking unit. The then-redshirt freshman played Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Now, before the kickers leave their team hotel for the last time a reminder of their goals booms through the old Italian voice:

I wanna wake up, in a city that doesn’t sleep

And find I’m king of the hill

Top of the heap

Published on September 18, 2019 at 11:27 pm

Contact Josh: jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44