One big change for the Minutemen in 2018 will be the kicking game. Logan Laurant went 13-15 86.7% in field goals. His kicking was the margin of victory in the Appalachian State and BYU victories.
Logan also did all the punting. He went 65-2772 42.6 AVE 63 LONG 6 TB 17 i20 and 14 50+.
Longan and Freshman Michael Schneider (0-4 field goals 35-1960 kickoffs) are gone. Long snapper Nick Berus also graduated.
Returning are:
Mike Caggiano RSJR--Redshirted 2017. He is 1-3 in career field goal attempts. Handled all the kickoffs and PAT's in 2016.
Evan Padilla RSFR. Redshirted in 2017.
Theo Yongue RSSR. No career stats.
Joining the team this year:
Cooper Garcia JR . Lindy's Magazine picked Cooper as UMass' top newcomer for 2018. "PK Cooper Garcia: The transfer from Ventura College steps right into the kicking job, and he will be big for an offense that expects to pile up the points. Garcia was 15 of 20 on field goal attempts and 59-for-59 on PAT's last year for Ventura."
George Georgopoulos FR. Was first-team All-Region as a punter in 2016 and 2017 in HS.
UMass returns two long snappers:
Peter Comaroto RSJR: DNP in 2017.
Harry Blair RSSO: Redshirted in 2017.
The Minutemen add:
Evan Deckers FR. Highly rated LS by several kicking camps.
UMass fans have suffered through 4 1/2 years of tear-your-hair-out bad kicking and six games of great kicking. It was no coincidence that we won four of the six of those games. The Minutemen will start a new kicker, punter and LS on August 25th. We shall see...
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UMass moved to FBS in 2012 and EA Sports NCAA Football computer football game promptly died. SB Nation thinks it could come back.
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