Bowling Green State University Athletics
Nate Fry: The Lonely Kicker
October 07, 2005 | Football
Oct. 7, 2005
By JACK CARLE, Sentinel Sports Editor - The time will come.
Sometime this season, Bowling Green's field goal unit will go on the field and successfully convert. The Falcons are the only Division I-A team not to have made a field goal this fall. In fact, BG has not even attempted a field goal in four games.
And if Nate Fry is called on to be the kicker, the fifth-year senior from Findlay High School is ready. Bowling Green hosts Ohio University Saturday with kickoff at 6 p.m.
"I'm not afraid to attempt a field goal with Fry," BG head coach Gregg Brandon said. "Every situation that has come up, we've kept the ball and kept it moving."
"They're (BG's coaching staff) not too excited about field goals. They want to put those touchdowns up on the board," Fry said.
Fry, who was a first-team all-state pick as a senior at Findlay, has added the place-kicking duties to his punting chores. Fry is in his third season as BG's regular punter.
"Since I came here as a kicker, that's what I've been practicing the most to do during all five years I've been here," Fry said. "Even when I took over the punting duties, I still made sure my fundamentals and my mechanics for place-kicking were there in case anything would happen."
Joe Timchenko won the place-kicking job in preseason and was 10-of-13 on extra points. However, he battled inconsistency on both place kicks and kickoffs and is sidelined with a quadriceps injury.
Timchenko's woes led to a competition with Fry for the kicking spot. Fry won the battle and was 10-of-10 on extra points and had several kickoffs into the end zone against Temple last Saturday. The Owls' average starting field position was the 25-yard line.
"We've been charting ... head-to-head competition and his production in practice has been better," Brandon said about Fry. "Joe's had the quad strain, so he can't get much oomph in his kicks right now. So until he gets healthy, he won't be back in the hunt."
After missing an extra point against Boise State, Fry was happy to get the opportunity to kick again against Temple.
"I felt good (against Temple). I hit the ball well, so hopefully we can keep that up for the rest of the season, if they want me to do that," he said.
Fry is the third kicker from Findlay to play major college football in recent years. He picked Bowling Green due in part to then-head coach Urban Meyer's commitment to rebuild the Falcons and the opportunity to play right away.
"At the time Shaun Suisham had just torn his quad and they weren't sure if he was going to be able to kick," Fry said about the recruiting process.
However, Suisham recovered and went on to set Bowling Green's career scoring record.
It was not until Fry's third year at Bowling Green that he earned a regular spot and that was as a punter.
"I punted two years in high school and only kicked my senior year and came here as a place-kicker," Fry said. "I sat out a few years and then ended up taking over the punting duties when Pat Fleming graduated.
"That's kind of ironic. My family gets a real big kick out of it."
Because of BG's high-scoring offense, Fry is averaging only 3.6 punts per game in his career. He has put 22 of 108 career punts inside the 20-yard line.
"To be honest, punting is what I love to do," he said. "I'm most familiar with punting. I love to do both, but punting is what I always thought I would be able to do.
"With punting, I may only be on the field twice," he added. "With place-kicking I'm able to stay in the game and stay loose. That was kind of a nice change on Saturday."
Brandon has been impressed with Fry's work this season, either out of the regular punt formation or using the sprint-out rugby-style punt, and that of the punt coverage team.
"Teams are averaging less than a yard a return against us, we're leading the conference in that area," Brandon said. "We're moving him, keeping teams off balance. They may not want to rush us and we get people down to cover quick that way. It's a good scheme; I like it."
This fall, teams are averaging only 0.9 yards per return, the lowest total in the Mid-American Conference. BG is also third in the MAC in net punting at 37.0 per punt.
