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Jason Sanders – September 1, 2020 Download PDF version

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

K Jason Sanders

(We’ve had a chance to ask all of the players how COVID has impacted their preparations for the season. Obviously this thing has been going on for like six months not. When everyone was kind of sheltering down and their lives … How or in any way did that impact you?) – “From a kicking standpoint, it wasn’t that bad. It allowed me to – I had more time in the offseason. We started later, so it allowed me to get ready with a couple of more weeks to spare. The only down part in the offseason is that a lot of places were closed. There weren’t a lot of places for me to train, so I would have to work my way with that; but from a kicking standpoint, it kind of helped a little bit.”

(I wanted to ask you, from a kicker standpoint, did it make more of a difference to you that there were no preseason games this year?) – “I think it will help you save your legs for the season. The season is a long, long grind. Having that one game in the preseason might get you into that game shape that you’re not used to. You’ve got to stay warm for about four hours, or even longer than that – pregame, maybe five or six hours before, and now we are getting about an hour, an hour and a half or two hours at practice.”

(Have you convinced Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman to let you throw on the trick play this year?) – “(laughter) There are no secrets coming out.”

(I was telling Head Coach Brian Flores that Austin Peay went down to their fourth long snapper in their first college football game of the year due to COVID. He revealed a secret – he said that WR Mack Hollins is an emergency snapper. I remember LB Mike Hull used to do it. Do you have a WR Mack Hollins long snapper scouting report and is anyone else pretty good who is not a lineman?) – “That’s the tough part about the whole COVID protocol. If a guy goes down, you have to go through the whole protocol to get a guy in. Even as a kicker and punter, you have to know whose going to go in if something happens. As a player, I don’t know whose going to be there. We haven’t gone that far yet.”

(You just mentioned that the fact that COVID makes things uncertain obviously. Kickers seem to be the most likely option to kind of fill in if something was to happen to you guys. When was the last time you punted, and how is your punting ability?) – “We’ll mess around every once in a while at practice. I would say I’d be a good emergency punter. I’m not going to be an NFL punter in the league, but an emergency punter, I’ll be there.”

(With two years under your belt in the NFL, I’m just curious how would you assess your second season in comparison to your first?) – “The first season, I felt like I didn’t have as many kicks. I definitely didn’t have as many kicks as I did last year. The first season I think was a rather short year where we didn’t back it up very far; but when the second year came around, it was good to see the confidence that Coach Flores and Crossman had in me to throw me out there when we needed three points. Reflecting back, as low as my percentage was last year, I liked the things I did. I had a lot of big kicks. It was a slow start, but I had a lot of big kicks and a couple of big plays.”

(What are the areas of improvement that you would like to see from yourself this year?) – “Just try to – every kick is going to be the same kick. So if I go out there for a nice little PAT, I want that same mindset, same stroke on the ball going into that 40-45 yard field goal. For me, it’s all going to stay the same. As long as I keep my mind in the right place, you keep swinging the way you’re swinging, it’s all going to work out for itself. I don’t treat any kick differently. Every kick in my head is the same kick.”

(I know over the last couple of years, they made some tweaks to how you do onside kicks, and kickoffs in general. How has that impacted how you guys go about that kickoff play?) – “Every kickoff, or onside kick, is going to be a lot harder. You don’t get that running start as you would two or three years ago. It changes the kicks. It changes what somebody was good at, they can no longer do because it’s harder to get the ball back. I think having a kicker that can do a different variety of onside kicks is going to have that kickoff return team guessing on what’s going to happen. I think that’s what may give you an edge on the kickoff team to get that ball back.”

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