To Punt, or Not To Punt? Football’s Age-Old Question

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Presbyterian college football head coach Kevin Kelley never punts. It’s a philosophy that brought him major success at the high school level in Arkansas, where his unconventional thinking resulted in nine state titles in 18 seasons, and an innovation award presented to him by Robert DeNiro. But Kelley’s leap from high school to college landscape has been met with its fair share of criticism. Hear Ryan McGee discuss why, after a 72-0 loss that shook the NCAA’s smallest Division I program, Kelley continues to search for angles and advantages that work in favor of a program that admittedly has nothing to lose. Then, Paolo Uggetti shares his report on San Diego State’s Matt Araiza, a left-legged kicking phenomenon who booms punts, nails field goals, and crushes kickoffs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	ESPN Daily is presented by Supercuts, the smarter, easier way to get a haircut.
0:07.0	It's not just any haircut, it's super cuts.
0:10.0	Hello, I'm Kevin Kelly. I'm the head football coach at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas.
0:17.0	Coach Kevin Kelly became famous running a high school football program, where he had a very
0:22.8	specific philosophy.
0:25.7	Now let's talk about the whole philosophy.
0:28.0	You're probably sitting there thinking, what in the world?
0:30.7	You can't go for it on Fort Down.
0:32.3	I'll get fired or why do people punt?
0:35.2	Well, traditionally speaking, people tend to do things in their lives that they've always seen done or that's the way it's always been done.
0:42.8	We stopped and asked the question, why.
0:45.1	He even laid it out like you just heard in a set of DVDs to teach his mantra.
0:50.4	Now Coach Kelly has taken the concept to the college level. And our own Ryan McGee took a visit to ask some questions of his own.
1:00.1	I'm Pablo Torre. It's Thursday, November 11th. This is ESPN Daily.
1:10.5	Ryan McGee, I bring you on here because the profile, the story that you wrote about Kevin Kelly,
1:17.4	the first year coach at Presbyterian College raises an immediate follow-up question.
1:22.7	Why should we care about the football coach at Presbyterian College?
1:26.4	Because he is the guy who never
1:29.1	punts. I don't have to say his name because most people in college football don't even know his
1:34.8	name. Ryan McGee is an ESPN senior writer and the co-host of Marty and McGee on the SEC Network.
1:41.8	But if I say, hey, I'm writing a story about the guy who never punts, everyone immediately
1:47.5	knows, oh, that's the guy, that's Kevin Kelly, that's the guy at Presbyterian College.
	...

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