Blake Mazza Commits (Kicker)

[The_Iceman]

https://twitter.com/blakemazza/status/854341464746323971

http://247sports.com/player/blake-mazza-45573000

http://www.hudl.com/profile/3710214/blake-mazza

[HognitiveDissonance]

https://twitter.com/blakemazza/status/854341464746323971

http://247sports.com/player/blake-mazza-45573000

http://www.hudl.com/profile/3710214/blake-mazza

Yes!
A kicker. An overlooked position.
Now, who is he and tell me if he's any good.

[Hawgzinbowlz]

Welcome to Hog Country Mr. Mazza.

" GO HOGS "

[Next1_04]

According to this he's a 5*

[Kevin]

same kicking guru that worked with  hedlund, correct

[rljjr]

I have no doubts this guy will be a great addition at a position of need. Happy to have him on board. #12 kicker in the nation.

[bville_hog]

says class of 2017....so walk-on i guess?

[ricepig]

same kicking guru that worked with  hedlund, correct

There's only two of them, Sailer and Kohl's. I don't know if he worked with Cole, or not. He worked with JK Scott of Bama, Wunderlich of OM, amongst others.

Just looked at Kohl's, Hedlund was his student, ranked 4th in 2014.

[JayHog]

6 out of 9 on fg's last year.  5'9".

[GoHogzzGo]

Woot welcome aboard! Now we just need a punter who is not in "extreme timeout".

[yraciv]

https://www.chrissailerkicking.com/player-rankings/profile?player=7475

Player Review

Blake is an outstanding kicking prospect. Field goals are excellent off the ground. He kicks with nice technique and consistency. Gets great height on his ball and kicks great confidence. Shows 55+ yard range. Kickoffs are strong, D1 ready. Also shows that he can be a dependable punter. I love the way he competes. He has the tools to be a big time college level player. A fine young man with a great attitude and work ethic. Blake is going to make a great addition to any college football program. Excellent prospect.

[jbcarol]

says class of 2017....so walk-on i guess?

https://twitter.com/Michael_Carvell/status/854362967831453696

[The_Boot_stops_here]

This should send a message to Hedlund

[oldfart]

This should send a message to Hedlund

and Johnson....

[factchecker]

[ricepig]

Well, he's kicking off a tee in those it appears, so that will be an adjustment.

[ricepig]

https://www.seccountry.com/arkansas/arkansas-football-blake-mazza-2017

[TheRazorback500]

Nice get. WPS!

:razorback:

[sowmonella]

Gets really good height on his fg's. Welcome Blake. :razorback:

[Großer Kriegschwein]

Gets really good height on his fg's. Welcome Blake. :razorback:

We need that badly. If you don't get it over the hands of the defense, it doesn't matter whether you WERE on line or not. At 30 yards, get some elevation quickly and give yourself a chance to make it.

[MissippHog]

https://www.chrissailerkicking.com/player-rankings/profile?player=7475

Player Review

Blake is an outstanding kicking prospect. Field goals are excellent off the ground. He kicks with nice technique and consistency. Gets great height on his ball and kicks great confidence. Shows 55+ yard range. Kickoffs are strong, D1 ready. ............

Honestly, I stopped reading when I got to "Kickoffs are strong, D1 ready."  If he can put it into the endzone / out of the back of the endzone each and every time I couldn't be happier.

[HognitiveDissonance]

Well, he's kicking off a tee in those it appears, so that will be an adjustment.

Hedlund has never appeared to adjust without the tee. He's had a chronic problem kicking low.
No idea about Mazza...everyone is different. But it is a factor these kids have to face when moving to college. Some handle it, some don't.
So yea, I also am slow to get too excited when seeing a kicking tee involved.
These kids would serve themselves well to put together a video kicking off the ground and mailing it to colleges, if they're trying to get themselves noticed. Mazza not in that group, but just sayin'.

[MuskogeeHogFan]

Hedlund has never appeared to adjust without the tee. He's had a chronic problem kicking low.
No idea about Mazza...everyone is different. But it is a factor these kids have to face when moving to college. Some handle it, some don't.
So yea, I also am slow to get too excited when seeing a kicking tee involved.
These kids would serve themselves well to put together a video kicking off the ground and mailing it to colleges, if they're trying to get themselves noticed. Mazza not in that group, but just sayin'.

At the Camps, they do kick off the turf, absent a tee. Go to about the 1:20 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul-XJcxxBq8

[ricepig]

At the Camps, they do kick off the turf, absent a tee. Go to about the 1:20 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul-XJcxxBq8

And I kill it on the driving range. All that means for both of us, is we can do it, but can we do it with the pressure on?

[Piggfoot]

High schools need to start kicking off the ground.

[MuskogeeHogFan]

And I kill it on the driving range. All that means for both of us, is we can do it, but can we do it with the pressure on?

Yeah but what I was responding to was the notion that these kids don't kick off the turf.

[ricepig]

Yeah but what I was responding to was the notion that these kids don't kick off the turf.

In his games? We had a kicker on my son's team several years ago that ended up kicking and punting in D1, he used the collegiate height tee for kickoffs, and no tee for FG's + EP's.

[MuskogeeHogFan]

In his games? We had a kicker on my son's team several years ago that ended up kicking and punting in D1, he used the collegiate height tee for kickoffs, and no tee for FG's + EP's.

Again, in the camps for FG's & XP's, which is why I posted the video. I would love it if they did away with tee's for HS kickers for FG's/XP's. I suppose HS kickers could opt to not use a tee for those two things, provided that their coaches agreed. 

[PorkRinds]

High schools need to start kicking off the ground.

High schools job is to win high school games.  So they kick off a tee because it's easier. Their job isn't to prepare their kicker for college kicking. 

[pigture perfect]

Honestly, I stopped reading when I got to "Kickoffs are strong, D1 ready."  If he can put it into the endzone / out of the back of the endzone each and every time I couldn't be happier.

we stopped about the same time, I recon.

[Birminghog]

and Johnson....

No one is indispensable.

[longpig]

According to this he's a 5*

In Sailer's personal book of kicker evaluations maybe, recruiting sites hardly ever give a kicker a ranking.

[ricepig]

In Sailer's personal book of kicker evaluations maybe, recruiting sites hardly ever give a kicker a ranking.

Correct, a 5* in Sailer's ratings is a guy that he rates a DI prospect, a 4* is D-II and so forth.....

[tbhogfan]

Yes!
A kicker. An overlooked position.
Now, who is he and tell me if he's any good.

He has nice stats at the high school level and is rated well by the experts.  With kickers, you really need to see how they respond "under the lights."  We've had some highly rated scholarship guys not pan out as hoped, and walk-ons who have done very well.

[Inhogswetrust]

High schools job is to win high school games.  So they kick off a tee because it's easier. Their job isn't to prepare their kicker for college kicking. 

Last time I checked it's the job to win at all levels. ALL levels have rules set up for different reasons.

[PorkRinds]

Last time I checked it's the job to win at all levels. ALL levels have rules set up for different reasons.

Not sure what your point is. The post I responded to says high schools should start kicking off grass. My comment was that his HH school coaches shouldn't have their kickers kicking off of grass just to help college kickers. Their job is to win high school games so if a tee makes it easier to win they should use a tee and not worry what college kickers are doing.

[Inhogswetrust]

Not sure what your point is. The post I responded to says high schools should start kicking off grass. My comment was that his HH school coaches shouldn't have their kickers kicking off of grass just to help college kickers. Their job is to win high school games so if a tee makes it easier to win they should use a tee and not worry what college kickers are doing.

My point is if rules are always set up to make it easier to win then some rules wouldn't be on the books.

[PorkRinds]

My point is if rules are always set up to make it easier to win then some rules wouldn't be on the books.

How does that contradict anything I said? My point was that high school coaches shouldn't have their kids kick off of tees just to help them out in college. They should have them kick the easiest way possible so they can win.

[Inhogswetrust]

How does that contradict anything I said? My point was that high school coaches shouldn't have their kids kick off of tees just to help them out in college. They should have them kick the easiest way possible so they can win.

Rules at ANY level shouldn't be set up in order to "help" coaches win.

[bennyl08]

Rules at ANY level shouldn't be set up in order to "help" coaches win.

Well, all the kicks used to be off of the tees at the college level, and I think even the pros once kicked off tees but couldn't find yay or nay in 30 seconds from google and didn't want to search further. College rules were changed in the late 80's, and thus when Arkansas fans remember strings of great kickers back in the day, well, their numbers were certainly still good compared to others at their time, but there should be asterisks considering kicking from turf with a holder is a completely different ball game.

You bring up an interesting point though. What should be the purpose of rules in a sport? What goals should they strive to achieve? To me, I'd say first and foremost, their goal is to literally create the game in the first place. I.e. using a american football as opposed to a rugby ball or a tennis ball, etc... Priority 2: Relative safety of the players per the accepted levels by the current society. For example, football is dangerous, but in todays game, we want players to be physically capable of going on a hike with their kids after football is over. Back in the dayI could be wrong but I'm pretty sure you actually received points for destroying the other player's ability to even have kids. Priority 3: Competition. You need a way to accurately determine the winner. You need to decide how lopsided the game should be able to get. You need to determine what level the players will be able to compete at as well.

1 and 2 should be self-explanatory with 2 obviously varying wildly from individual to individual and over generations. For three, that's the relevance to this thread. Namely, HS kickers aren't going to be as good as pro kickers. Thus, there are fewer rules restricting how they kick the ball (i.e. allowing tees). Remove that ability and you greatly limit what can be done in the HS kicking game while greatly favoring teams with rare talent. Similarly you see different rules on length of games for different levels of play with NBA games being longer than college b-ball and such. The younger players can't physically handle as much as some of the other players and thus the rules are made to set up the game to allow competitive play. It's not competitive if only 1 or 2 teams in a state are even capable of doing such a commonly asked to do task such as kicking a FG or EP. Thus, tees are allowed. At college, most every team could routinely kick 40+ yard fg's with tees while almost no teams would routinely struggle to even be able to make a 30 yard fg. Even with our kicking struggles we wouldn't meet that level of failure. Thus, kicking from tees removes competition at the college level since there's almost no chance of failure while removing tees from HS removes competition since there is a very low chance of success for a common task. Onside kick is low success rate, but not a common task.

[PorkRinds]

Rules at ANY level shouldn't be set up in order to "help" coaches win.

The tee rules in high school help the kickers make more field goals. That helps coaches win by default.

[bphi11ips]

Congratulations to Blake. 

Hope they'll look at this guy next year:

https://twitter.com/JamesWilhoit/status/858129161461878784

[LZH]

Congratulations to Blake. 

Hope they'll look at this guy next year:

https://twitter.com/JamesWilhoit/status/858129161461878784

Wishing Matthew the best. Any ideas where he wants to go yet?

[bphi11ips]

Wishing Matthew the best. Any ideas where he wants to go yet?

If you'd asked him that two years ago I think he would have said Arkansas pretty quickly.  Everyone in this house is a fan.  But as we narrowed the list of invitations this year (Arkansas wasn't on the list), he broke it down into two categories - P5 schools needing kickers, and great academic schools recruiting him as a player.  He'd like to stay relatively close to home if he kicks but may go much further away for a great school. 

I didn't appreciate the number of factors facing these kids when they make a decision until recently.  It's much more than your favorite team or your parents' favorite team.  Once the real recruiting starts, the question becomes what is best for the player and his future. 

When a player doesn't commit right away and says he is trying to make the best decision for himself, that really is what is going on in most cases, I think. 

[LZH]

If you'd asked him that two years ago I think he would have said Arkansas pretty quickly.  Everyone in this house is a fan.  But as we narrowed the list of invitations this year (Arkansas wasn't on the list), he broke it down into two categories - P5 schools needing kickers, and great academic schools recruiting him as a player.  He'd like to stay relatively close to home if he kicks but may go much further away for a great school. 

I didn't appreciate the number of factors facing these kids when they make a decision until recently.  It's much more than your favorite team or your parents' favorite team.  Once the real recruiting starts, the question becomes what is best for the player and his future. 

When a player doesn't commit right away and says he is trying to make the best decision for himself, that really is what is going on in most cases, I think. 

Harvard it is....!

[bennyl08]

If you'd asked him that two years ago I think he would have said Arkansas pretty quickly.  Everyone in this house is a fan.  But as we narrowed the list of invitations this year (Arkansas wasn't on the list), he broke it down into two categories - P5 schools needing kickers, and great academic schools recruiting him as a player.  He'd like to stay relatively close to home if he kicks but may go much further away for a great school. 

I didn't appreciate the number of factors facing these kids when they make a decision until recently.  It's much more than your favorite team or your parents' favorite team.  Once the real recruiting starts, the question becomes what is best for the player and his future. 

When a player doesn't commit right away and says he is trying to make the best decision for himself, that really is what is going on in most cases, I think.

Right up there with "who knew healthcare could be so difficult"

"The north korea situation is a lot more difficult than I realized."

Recently it has been said that fixing the middle east isn't that difficult so in a week or so, there'll probably be a "who knew bringing peace to the middle east was so difficult?"

[bphi11ips]

Right up there with "who knew healthcare could be so difficult"

"The north korea situation is a lot more difficult than I realized."

Recently it has been said that fixing the middle east isn't that difficult so in a week or so, there'll probably be a "who knew bringing peace to the middle east was so difficult?"

Yeah, well, I've never tried to fix healthcare, north korea, or the middle east. 

[LZH]

Yeah, well, I've never tried to fix healthcare, north korea, or the middle east. 

Slacker.....

[greenie]

Right up there with "who knew healthcare could be so difficult"

"The north korea situation is a lot more difficult than I realized."

Recently it has been said that fixing the middle east isn't that difficult so in a week or so, there'll probably be a "who knew bringing peace to the middle east was so difficult?"

I enjoy your sports analysis...you should stick to that in this forum.