FanPost

The Cardinal Countdown...40 days until kickoff

Andy Lyons

#40 Joshua Appleby

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Class: Junior

Ht/Wt: 6-3/219

Position: Kicker

Hometown: Athens, Ala

Twitter: None

Thoughts: I loved me some Appleby when we signed this guy a couple years ago. He was just learning the position, having only started kicking a few years before, he had great strength, and at 6-3 he got more extension (torque) on each kick. My assessment back in 2012 was that he would be our starting kicker or punter within a year…I was wrong. But in my defense, I’m not sure why. Appleby has performed well when given the opportunity, and at kicker it’s not like the step up in competition is a huge game changer. The nine opportunities that Joshua was given on kickoffs last season, three of them were touchbacks and zero went out of bounds. A 63 yard average and a 33% success rate for touchbacks, even with a small sample size, are impressive. Why not keep Wallace kicking field goals but throw Appleby into the kickoff duties?? I’m not a talent evaluator, and I’m sure Tony Grantham knows what he’s doing on special teams, but the kid has talent. If Wallace continues with kickoff duties I won’t be upset, but if Burgess, Rankins, and the defense keep getting a short field to work with, things may change.

Sweet Tweet: No twitter for Appleby, but all that does is give me another excuse to search the internet for kicking videos…starting around the 2:05 mark things get pretty nuts.