It's never good to be ""that guy."" You know, that guy who always wears the fanny pack, or that guy who has the disgusting cough in class. It's especially not so impressive to be that guy who, 10 minutes before Spanish class, goes into the Van Hise vending machine area, buys and defrosts those packaged White Castle cheeseburgers and scarfs them down in the room just in time for the opening bell. In short, don't be that guy.
This whole ""that guy"" thing can work its way into sports too. Like that guy (George Muresean) who always tripped over his feet. Or that guy (Kris Benson) who is less famous than his wife. Or even that guy (Gary Sheffield) who ""mistakenly"" did steroids and everyone forgot about it.
Then there's young Kyle Yelton, the punter for Illinois. Now, if you look at Kyle Yelton's picture, you might think he's 16 years old. Essentially, he's that guy that when he touches the ball, his hometown fans cross their fingers.
The freshman punted six times for a total of 170 yards—for an average of 28.3 yards per punt. That means he would need a little over three and a half of his average punts Saturday to get down the whole football field.
Yelton's average of 36.42 net yards per punt attempt is 88th in the country, in front of only Iowa's Andy Fenstermaker, Florida International's Chris Cook and Kent State's Jake Kilroy.
But there's time for head coach Ron Zook. Yelton's only a freshman, so it's not like he has to feel loyalty towards the youngin'. I have a solution for Zook that could bring money to him, to his school and create some national interest in a team that has floundered in the gutters of the Big Ten for too long.
Zook should venture into the world of reality television. Before you turn the page, think of it this way. The University of Illinois has around 30,000 undergrads, right? Why not kick off a crazy contest to find a new punter? There's got to be one guy or girl on that entire campus that can kick the ball further than Yelton. Also, the line of students would go all the way to Skokie, because there would be so much interest.
It could be called ""Hunting for punting"" or even ""And get this! Here's the kicker...""
Zook shouldn't look at his team's poor field position following three-and-outs as a negative, but rather as a chance to make Illinois some cash. It worked for Bobby Knight with ""Knight School"" and look what reality TV did for the rebirth of Flavor Flav's career.
All in all, this idea could have only good results. The only one who might be hurt by it is Yelton. But right now, I think Yelton's in enough pain from watching tapes with the special teams unit every week.
The Ilinois punter fan club can direct hate mail to sepepper@wisc.edu.
