43
Veteran kicker Palmer seeks consistency
Photo
YSU kicker Brian Palmer during practice. Holding is Todd Rowan.
By Pete Mollica
He’s been the Penguins placekicker for three seasons.
YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown State football team finished practice Tuesday afternoon on the grass practice field at the YSU track by running some wind sprints.
After four or five sprints, they lined up for a field goal attempt from about 35 yards out. If senior place kicker Brian Palmer made the kick, the sprints ended; if he missed, they continued.
After three straight misses, the team was starting to get upset with the veteran kicker, who then saved their day by making the fourth kick, bringing practice to an end.
“It was getting a little testy out there,” Palmer said.
In Palmer’s defense, he was kicking off the grass field where the grass was about three or four inches thick which makes things much more difficult for a kicker. And he’s been working recently with a new holder in freshman quarterback Marc Kanetsky of Hubbard.
“You’re never going to find those kind of conditions in a game,” Palmer said. “Kicking off turf is so much easier.”
The Penguins are practicing a couple times a week on the grass field because they will play their second game of the season at South Dakota State, which has a grass field.
The Penguins open the season at Ohio State, which has artificial turf, the same kind as at Stambaugh Stadium.
Palmer, the standout from Mineral Ridge, has been the Penguins’ place kicker for the past three seasons and has gotten better with each season.
The 5-foot-11, 180-pounder set a school record last season when he converted 93.3 percent of his field goal attempts, making 14-of-15. Those included his last 11 in a row which also established a school mark for consecutive field goals.
His percentage was the highest among all kickers in the Football Championship Subdivision and he ranked 18th in the nation with 1.27 field goals per game.
His efforts didn’t go unnoticed as he was named to the 2007 All-Gateway Conference second team and received honorable mention on the SportsNetwork All-American team.
Palmer has worked very hard over the summer to improve his kicking.
“I’ve really been working hard on my consistency,” he said. “I’ve been pretty consistent, but I know that I can do even better.
“I went back to Wisconsin to a camp there and worked with a sports psychologist and he helped me again. Basically it was showing me that I didn’t have to overkick the ball, but put a clean, smooth swing on it.”
For the past two seasons, Palmer has worked with holder Todd Rowan and the two have been very happy with the matchup. But Rowan, who is competing for the team’s starting quarterback job, has been banged up and Palmer has been working more with Kanetsky.
Palmer doesn’t really set individual goals for himself, except to be perfect on his kicks.
“You always want to be 100 percent,” he said. “I came close last year and this year I’ll try to accomplish that goal.”
The Penguins’ injury list grew slightly after Tuesday’s session as three more players sustained injuries, most of them not serious.
Junior linebacker Roshon Simons, a projected starter, went down with a knee injury, while junior transfer Donald Jones, a wide receiver/kick returner who has been impressive in workouts, had a shoulder injury. Redshirt freshman defensive end Josh Myers appeared to have the most serious injury to a knee that required help getting him off the field.
Some good news on the injury list was that fifth-year senior offensive lineman Tyler Booth’s knee injury is not serious.
Redshirt freshman wide receiver Josh Lee and sophomore defensive end Nick Mernedakis both returned to practice after a couple of days on the injured list.
“We’ve had a few bumps and bruises, but nothing out of the ordinary and most of them will be back in action in a few days,” Coach Jon Heacock said.
mollica@vindy.com