No. 2 2026 K Noah Sur commits to Northwestern
Kicker Noah Sur from Oak Park (Ill.) Fenwick announced his offer and commitment to Northwestern on Thursday.
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BREAKING: Local 2026 K Noah Sur commits to Northwestern
- Thread starter mshelton33
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I think it's similar to why NFL teams rarely use draft picks on college kickers. It's one of the trickiest positions to project from high school to college, and teams don't want to burn scholarships on specialists that could go to a potential skill player.
High school kickers have small or odd sample sizes as their high school teams may or may not be giving them good chances to show their range and consistency under game pressure. For instance, Sur is an elite kicker at camp but he's only made a 42-yard long field goal for Fenwick because, in part, it's not like the head coach is going to stall out drives to give his kicker college tape.
Not everyone is like Jack Olsen, who holds the Illinois high school record with eight field goals in a game (48, 38, 24, 44, 25, 44, 45 and 20 for those curious on distances, per the IHSA). Even that's indicative of how odd kickers can be, as Olsen went 3-for-7 the year prior.
Many programs, including Northwestern in the past, Sur is their first HS scholarship kicker since Kuhbander in the Class of 2017, used to use preferred walkon offers to local players and then convert the kids to scholarship if they've proven their talent. Henry Helms is on that track for the Wildcats right now.
Can we give Sur a break and stop the number 2 kicker references? It’s one rating vehicle. Folks will jump on that after every shanked kick. A lot of Big boys also took a kicker too. The major football recruiting services don’t even have him ranked.
What matters is the staff feels he is good enough to give a scholarship to. The first one out of HS since Kubander. PK’s are the ultimate crapshoot. Let’s hope he is our version of Garo Yepremian.
What matters is the staff feels he is good enough to give a scholarship to. The first one out of HS since Kubander. PK’s are the ultimate crapshoot. Let’s hope he is our version of Garo Yepremian.
Chris Sailer is pretty much the go-to guy when it comes to specialists. Jamie Kohl is the other guy.
With changing rules, all this changes. First, scholarship vs non-scholarship is no longer a factor as the distinction between scholarshipped and non-schilarshipped roster spots no longer exists. However, with the prevalence of the portal, a big time program can just to bring in a proven guy.
The scholarship vs non-scholarship issue will remain a topic if schools don’t offer scholarships for spots 86-105. Assuming does not exceed the 85 scholarship threshold it will be interesting to se how the roster is filled out over the coming years.
From what I’ve read, it’s seems like the majority are not willing to fund the extra slots. Time will tell.
When you look at schools like Texas Tech with $50 million player payrolls dept wide, I find that hard to believe it will persist
