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When you think of dynamic duos in college football, it's usually a quarterback and wide receiver or running back; or maybe a pair of great corners or linebackers. Well, when it comes to dynamic duos for Utah football, I think of special teams, specifically the kickers. Yeah, it feels a little bit dirty to pick two kickers, but these are not your normal kickers.
Your stereotypical kicking duo are the guys who are never in practice with their teammate's, instead they're out doing the special teams drills, and they're always bringing up the rear during
Utah place kicker Andy Phillips' journey has been well chronicled, going from the US National Ski Team to the Utah football team. The junior is a two-time captain for the Utes, and has been a two-time semifinalist for the Lou Groza award. For his career, Phillips is 42-of-52 (80.8%) on field goal attempts, with a long of 51, and is 91-of-92 on PATs. So for Utah's offense, generally, once they get to about the opponent's 30 yard line you can pencil in three points. They call him 'Automatic Andy' for a reason.
One of the best things about Phillips, not only is a very good kicker, but he's also a great weapon on kickoffs. Twice in his career, once against Utah State (his very first game) and once against UCLA, Phillips has pulled out a trick on-sides kick to gain an extra possession for Utah. So at
As I previously alluded to, Phillips isn't your typical place kicker in the weight room either. Whenever you see off season work out videos you'll see Phillips in the middle of the scrum doing squats and so on. When kickers do stuff like that, they legitimize themselves in the eyes of their teammate's that they are there for the grind, just like everybody else on the roster, scholarship or not. Here's a quick video of Phillips with Gionni Paul on his shoulders (while in pads) after the Utah State game singing the fight song.
LIGHT THE U! 24-14, Utes. 2&0 and onto the next one! #USUvsUTAH pic.twitter.com/PZ3LT1PKCZ
— Utah Football (@Utah_Football) September 12, 2015
The other half of Utah's dynamic kicking duo is
Something that is really special about Hackett is that he's what I'd consider a dual threat kicker. Hackett can sit back and do a traditional stand still punt, but he's really dangerous when he's on the move with rugby punts. When he does that, he can kick angled punts across the field, sometimes over the return guys head and really change the complexion of the game. There were multiple games last season where Utah probably doesn't win the game without the effectiveness of Hackett. The last three seasons, Hackett
With Hackett, to help show off his resume, I'm not going to discuss all of his stats, but show his awards from last season. To go along with his Ray Guy Award, Hackett was Utah's fifth all-time consensus All-American; he earned first-team honors from Walter Camp, the Associated Press, Phil Steele,
Here's some of the highlights of Tom's punts:
While Utah's two spectacular kickers have been a bit on and off to start the season, no doubt they will be key to Utah's success this season. In a game of inches and yards, ask a lot of teams out there how important it is to have a reliable kicking game, because those extra inches and yards start to add up to extra wins. No matter what, Utah knows they always have one of the three phases of the game in their favor with Andy Phillips and Tom Hackett.