Up tomorrow, but going to copy/paste here now for your late night reading pleasure!
Today on Duck Sports Authority – a rarity: an interview with a kicker as we spent some time talking with Oregon punter signee Tyler Kinsman. I had a few moments to chat with Tyler before we began the interview and he mentioned sort of humorously that he had not done a lot of interviews during the recruiting process and he told me that “nobody seems to notice a kicker until it's the moment of truth and something goes really great or really wrong when they suddenly know his name.”
Throughout the interview, Tyler showed plenty of humor, as well as the same kind of drive that gets elite players to an elite level.
“As a kicker, the recruiting approach is, if you want to go here, come here,” Kinsman began as he talked about what put Oregon above the other suitors.
“Nobody really pursues you as hard as they would a quarterback or any other position. So for me, Oregon really pursued me. I mean, something huge is that they even talked to my parents. They got my parents' number. I would text them, just like they'd text me. And just showed that I would matter in their program if I chose to join,” he continued.
“So it honestly made the decision really easy. Like once I got the offer, I never even announced, ‘hey, I got an offer from Oregon.’ When I got that offer from Oregon, I knew what I wanted to do, and that was commit, right? So it was honestly quite easy with how well they pursued me.”
The immediate assumption might be that Joe Lorig was the primary recruiter, but Kinsman laid out a little bit more about the flow that really helps Duck fans understand how Oregon layers their recruiting efforts.
“So, Oregon has a million recruiting personnel. Brian Bachman was the first guy who texted me. I'd say my relationship with Coach Lorig was the most important, simply because he's the guy I'll be most closely in touch with. Once you're in the program, you talk to those recruiting coordinators less as you can imagine. So yeah, Lorig was a huge part. Of course Josh Robinson is no longer at Oregon. He was a big part,.” Kinsman continued.
But he also mentioned the relationships developed with others at his position. “Just the kickers to be honest. I got to hang out with the kickers a couple times and being able to see that that relationship would be a good one was also a huge part of it.”
Kinsman talked a lot about relationships, so we also delved into the concept of the culture at Oregon and what it was that stands out for him about the Oregon culture. “I would define culture as the way people orient themselves in the good or bad,” Kinsman began. “I asked Grant Meaders, like the first time we hung out, I asked, how did Coach Lorig respond to Cam Lewis missing the field goal against Washington, right? The game-tying field goal. And Grant said, Lorig was nothing but love, you know, he's nothing but support, which showed culture to me. Seeing the locker room after the games, like, showed culture to me, and it's just so much more supportive than anything I've seen.”
He shared his thoughts about how the concept of culture and the business of college football relate as well.
“I've always heard that college football is cutthroat and cold hearted and things like that, but maybe that kind of stuff happens with coaches leaving and transfers and stuff like that. Maybe that's when it's cold-hearted business, but when it's just player to player, player to coach, it's so great at Oregon. So it was very apparent to me straight off the bat.”
Kinsman opened the door to the most talked about video among Oregon fans as well as fans outside of Eugene – the Dan Lanning video following rumors of his potential departure to Alabama.
“Yeah, so the night he announced that, I was listening to Twitter's spaces, as you can imagine, people just being all, like, paranoid, you know? Paranoid at a rumor that was started. So, I just had the utmost confidence in Coach Lanning that he wouldn't, I mean, for one, I knew, based on player intel, that he wasn't in Tuscaloosa. That was hilarious that people thought that. But, you know, I just had trust. I could see, based on how he recruited me, how he recruits other people, like how would a million people stay at the school when they couldn't declare for the draft or transfer if it weren't for Dan Lanning being such a good coach and showing good loyalty,” Kinsman told Duck Sports Authority.
“So I knew there was stuff even I hadn't seen that showed Lanning is loyal, so I had a lot of trust. And then obviously when he came out with the video, it's unfortunate that he has to make a video to announce to people I'm staying, even though I never made it a question, you know, that people just started to talk about him, and he has that. And that, you know, it just shows how loyal he is, and I appreciate it.
