One of the most overlooked position battles during Tennessee’s fall camp is its kicker battle. Most people don’t think of special teams battles during fall camp and the media is never allowed to watch specialists work during practice.
But that doesn’t lesson the importance of the battle. Special teams play decides game and no aspect of special teams more so than kicker. Tennessee lost starting kicker Charles Campbell to graduation this offseason and didn’t bring in any kickers through the portal this offseason.
That leaves a three person battle this fall camp between redshirt sophomore Josh Turbyville, redshirt junior JT Carver and redshirt freshman Max Gilbert. Meeting with the media on Saturday, special teams coach Mike Ekeler expressed is confidence in all three kickers.
“It’s been awesome. We got three guys that could pretty much start anywhere in the country,” Ekeler said. “Max (Gilbert) has done an awesome job. Turbs (Josh Turbyville) just keeps getting better. And JT (Carver), man, since the day we walked in here, he just grinds and he works his tail off. And he can go out there and, like I said, those three guys can play anywhere in the country. So we like the competition we’ve got.”
Josh Heupel has unsurprisingly played the competition close to the vest during fall camp saying that all three kickers have been comparable to one another.
If all three kickers have been even in camp it creates a handful of interesting situations for Tennessee. The first is that none of them have kicked field goals in games, though Turbville was the kick off specialist. How they respond to real game pressure is hard to know and something Tennessee is working to evaluate in practices and scrimmages.
“Heup does that all the time,” Ekeler said. “He’ll get those guys up, he’ll get the whole team up and he’ll literally form a tunnel around them and pressure kicks at the end of the day. And so he puts those guys in the situations really, truly a handful of times each week.”
It’s all about consistency. It’s like golfing. I mean it’s about being a consistent ball striker and that’s what they’re working on. And freaking love this group, man. I mean we got NFL type specialists. We have NFL type kickers.”
The second situation is how Tennessee would handle its starting kicker if he struggled early in the season. Ekeler pointed out that kicker is like quarterback in that only one player can play. If whoever Tennessee chooses as its kicker early struggles will they make the move to one of the others?
That depth can be valuable but a kicker roulette wheel won’t be good for anyone’s confidence at a position where confidence is key.
With kickoff less than two weeks away, it’s uncertain which player will be the one kicking the ball off.
