On Tuesday and Wednesday University of Wisconsin Punter, Brad Nortman was in Scottsdale, Arizona for spring break and more importantly refining his punting skills through my coaching technique of A Natural Style of Kicking and Punting.Brad was the starting punter at University of Wisconsin last season and started as a true freshmen. Not many players at any position can do that. He started the season with some excellent games and hit a couple of bumps in the road.
Brad is a big, good looking punter at about 6'3 and 215 pounds. Last summer I met with Brad for two days when I was back home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin visiting my parents. I worked with Brad on some basic fundamentals.
The key to success with any kicking specialists is good sound fundamentals. These fundamentals should be practiced and reinforced with good drills, not gimmick drills.
In the above photo Brad is working my drop progression and one step drills. We adjusted his stance because it was too wide and causing him to set up in a bad position after his first step.We next concentrated on eliminating him from crunching down and stopping his leg motion from going up and through the ball. He was kicking up but not through the ball. He had no skip! Matter of fact, on video he was jack knifing a moving backwards.
Brad is a good listener and can visualize and process information. In a very short period of time after working on a couple of drills he was now punting up and through the ball and skipping down field.
He hit some big booming power zone punts about 45 to 50 yards down field with 4.8 to 5.1 hang times. If he keeps improving he will be one of the nations leading punters in a couple of years. The key is fundamentals and hard work.
A kid from Wisconsin can handle that, I did! We are both from surrounding communities of Milwaukee!
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