You’ve heard the old adage that football games are won in the off-season. Well there’s nothing like getting a head start in January, especially for Sachem North’s Bryan Morris, who currently is Long Island’s premier kicker entering his senior season next fall.
Not since Garden City’s Ryan Norton or East Islip’s Sean Moller has a kicker garnered the recognition that Morris has begun to obtain as a junior and will undoubtedly grab during his final campaign at Sachem in 2013.
Last week Morris spent time working on his game at the One-On-One Kicking Expo at PGA National Park in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Joined by some of the top kickers and instructors in the country, Morris spent two days fine tuning kickoffs, field goals and punting.
“My punting definitely got better because I got a lot of help from all of the coaches there,” Morris said, “two of which are pros and a third who will be a pro.”
Among the instructors working with Morris were Rams rookie punter Johnny Hekker, Saints kicker Garrett Hartley, Tulane kicker Cairo Santos, who won the Lou Groza Award as the top college kicker in the nation last season, One-On-One owner Mike McCabe, who is considered the top kicking coach in the country, and a handful of others.
Morris said on his first punt of the competition his foot hit the ground before he made contact and the ball only went about 30 yards.
“Hekker started making fun of me and said I was ‘supposed to kick the ball not the dirt,’” he said. “’The ball goes farther.’”
During the camp, Morris’s longest field goal was 35 yards, but he hit the upright from 38 and had the distance from 42 and 45. His longest kickoff was 58 yards with a 3.6 second hang time and his best punt was 43 yards. For the record, his career-long field goal at Sachem was a 37-yarder against Bay Shore in a first round playoff win last season.
Morris, who has been the beneficiary of kicking for one of the top producing offenses in New York State since his freshman season in 2010, is only two extra points away from setting the Long Island record at 122. On another note, Morris is 50 points from setting the Long Island record for total kicking points (181). He has 132.
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro