#40 Joshua Appleby
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.