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The University of Mississippi Athletics
The Punter from Down Under
11/6/2014 | Football
By Austin Miller, Ole Miss Athletics Media Relations
One of the "its" for head coach Hugh Freeze and the Ole Miss football program is for special teams to provide the winning edge. Playing in his first American-style football season, Will Gleeson has done just that.
The redshirt freshman from Melbourne, Australia, is in only his second year of punting an American football, having redshirted and learned under Tyler Campbell last season.
Gleeson grew up playing Australia rules football and wanted to play professionally, but when that option did not present itself, he looked at other options, including one to follow in the footsteps of his older brother, Tim, who punts at Rutgers.
"I wanted to get a degree," Gleeson said. "I thought America would be a great opportunity to come over and play some sport and study at the same time."
From there, he enrolled at Pro Kick Australia, an academy established in 2006 to facilitate in the transition of aspiring kickers and punters to American football, which brought him to the United States for the first time, and eventually to Ole Miss.
"I was traveling the states in 2012," Gleeson said. "I was in New Orleans, and my coach called me up and said `I've got you a visit up in Oxford, Mississippi.' So I caught the train the next day, loved it and got offered from there."
"When you take a guy like him, especially when you take him off video, you're never 100 percent sure what you're getting," special teams coordinator Tom Allen said. "We were pretty confident, and I had a lot of high recommendations from the guys I know through Pro Kick Australia. But until you get him here and he adjusts to everything and actually plays the game of football, you really don't know."
It was a completely different world, Gleeson said, from a city of 4 million people, to a town of 20,000 people, from kicking an Australia football low and hard on the ground, to kicking an American football high and as long as possible.
"You knew he had a good leg and he could do things that were different from what other guys could do, so we had to get him comfortable in the pocket," Allen said. "That's the thing that we had to work on the most. When he first got here, he was very comfortable kicking on the move, but he was not used to being in the pocket and guys flying at him like that. We had to get him used to that. Once he got it and we got him into fall camp, and he had that first game under his belt, he's taken off."
Playing in his first American-style football game, Gleeson booted four punts for a 47.2-yard average and earned National Punter of the Week honors. He had a long punt of 70 yards and landed three inside the 20, including one downed at the 1-yard line.
"I was nervous but once I kicked the ball a couple of times, I calmed down," said Gleeson after his American-style football debut. "It was a long day and I was nervous. I had no idea what to expect, but everybody helped me and supported me."
Gleeson also earned National Punter of the Week honors for his performances against Alabama and Tennessee.
The Alabama game provided perhaps the signature moment of Gleeson's first season, as he pinned the Crimson Tide at the 1-yard line late in the fourth quarter, which after a change in possessions, set up the offense with great field position that led to the game-tying touchdown.
Gleeson had his busiest game of the season against Tennessee, as he punted nine times for a 48.2-yard average, landing four inside the 20, and helped Freeze lean on the defense and play for field position before the offense exploded late in the second quarter.
"He's been a huge factor," Freeze said. "We have won field position with his punting. With the way our defense has played, the way our coverage units have played and the way he's placing his punts, it has allowed us to be very patient at times offensively."
Gleeson has been relatively pleased with his first season, whether it's his rugby-style punts or more traditional sky punts, as he ranks among the nation's leaders in punting and net punting average.
"I like them both," Gleeson said. "It depends on what Coach Allen says and what he thinks works best, what their returners are like and where I am on the field. Fundamentally, I'm more comfortable doing the rugby punt since I have been doing it for a lot longer. However, once again, it all depends. It doesn't mess me up so much."
Outwardly, his unassuming demeanor exudes a quiet confidence, a desired disposition for a specialist. And closing in on the end of his first American-style football season, he continues to hone his new craft.
"He's steady," Allen said. "He's the same every day, which is what you need in a kicker. You can't get flustered. You're going to have good things happen, bad things happen. He has a great demeanor for being a kicker. He's very focused on the details and technique of being a punter. He understands mechanics. He knows what he does wrong when he doesn't hit it the right way, whether it's his drop, timing, footwork or his placement of his feet."
