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00:00 I'll get the first question.
00:01 Anyways, just your thoughts in the transition,
00:05 kicking, kicking in the end,
00:07 and have you been more successful
00:09 than maybe even you envisioned when you got here?
00:12 I think it goes back to my hard work
00:16 and, you know, the repetitions that I put in
00:18 to execute my job for the team.
00:21 And I don't think that it's a surprise to me
00:25 what I've done so far.
00:27 I just, you know, envisioned myself
00:30 when I got here to be successful,
00:32 and I think just the hard work and dedication
00:35 that I put in is just showing off,
00:38 and I plan to continue my success with what I've had.
00:42 Superstitious?
00:43 I'm very superstitious, actually.
00:46 So when people tell you you're doing well,
00:47 you're like, "Don't tell me that."
00:48 Yeah, you know, I just try to focus on the next kick,
00:52 the next game, and put my team in good positions
00:56 to help them out when my number's called.
00:58 I try really not to focus on the success
01:01 that I've had thus far
01:03 and not get too caught up in the moment,
01:06 just try to keep doing what I'm doing
01:08 and repeat the things that make me tick, make me do well.
01:15 You were known kind of before coming here
01:17 as someone with a booming leg, real strong leg.
01:20 Is that something that you can work on?
01:22 Like, how do you work on that
01:23 to make sure that it stays at that level?
01:26 Repetitions.
01:27 You know, in terms of the weight room,
01:31 I focus on my core a lot.
01:32 I think that's a big part of it.
01:34 Staying fast-twitch with my leg speed,
01:38 that's a big part of it.
01:39 Not necessarily strength for the most part.
01:42 You know, in the offseason, you do want to strengthen your core,
01:45 strengthen your legs, you know, all that good stuff.
01:49 In the season, you just kind of want to maintain body
01:52 composition, and the fast-twitch is a major part of it
01:57 with my leg speed.
01:58 Michael, kicking in my own Pushkar Stadium,
02:01 the hospital end, the wind kind of swirls a little bit.
02:05 The open end or the other end,
02:06 if you've got a lot of depth back there,
02:09 just talk about kicking in the stadium, the challenges.
02:11 Yeah, any stadium you go to,
02:14 there's going to be different winds.
02:17 At Georgia State, where I came from,
02:19 that was actually the old Turner Field
02:21 where the Braves played.
02:22 It was a baseball stadium.
02:24 So that was a very tough place to kick in in terms of wind.
02:27 Our stadium is a tough place to play in
02:30 in terms of wind when there is wind
02:31 and it gets called in there.
02:34 What me and Coach Coons and Coach Brown do know
02:39 is it's kind of hidden sometimes.
02:40 You can't necessarily trust the flags
02:44 on the uprights all the time.
02:46 I try to look at the American flag
02:49 that's above the hospital end.
02:51 I like to judge it off that as well.
02:54 And that's just something
02:56 that you've got to work on in warm-ups.
02:58 That's why I like to get out there as early as I can.
03:00 The first thing I look at is what are the flags doing,
03:03 what's different from the flag outside of the stadium,
03:08 and what's different between that
03:09 and the flags on the uprights.
03:10 Well, those two flags could be different.
03:12 Correct, yeah.
03:13 So you just have to play your ball.
03:15 You've got to trust your swing.
03:17 And the wind will switch.
03:19 A lot of it is not getting too much in your head with that,
03:23 not overthinking it, just trusting your swing,
03:25 trusting what you've taken thousands
03:27 and millions of reps up to that point.
03:31 I have a transfer.
03:32 You were real successful at Georgia State.
03:35 So what led you to think you wanted to go elsewhere,
03:38 and why ultimately West Virginia?
03:40 Yeah, a major goal of mine
03:43 was to play the biggest football I could possibly play.
03:47 I thought I accomplished just about as much
03:49 as I could at Georgia State.
03:51 I did all three there my previous year.
03:54 I kicked off, I did field goals, and I punted.
03:57 And I just wanted a bigger stage.
03:59 I wanted to expose myself,
04:01 put myself in the best position possible
04:04 for my future and my goals.
04:07 And when I got into the portal, West Virginia felt right for me,
04:11 the coaching staff, the facilities,
04:14 everything it had to offer.
04:16 In terms of getting me to where I could be the most successful,
04:21 so I chose here.
04:22 Asked Neil last week about you.
04:24 I said, "What's a comfortable distance?"
04:26 He says 50. What do you think?
04:29 I'm definitely comfortable from 50.
04:30 I would say 53 to 55 I feel good from.
04:36 Yeah, I would say 53, 55.
04:37 And you made that one against TCU,
04:39 and then it got wiped off there.
04:41 And it got a little bit disappointing.
04:42 That would have been your long, right?
04:43 That would have been my career long, yeah.
04:46 I didn't necessarily agree with the false start call,
04:49 but it is what it is.
04:52 That's how football goes.
04:54 I had another chance at it from 58, but it didn't go through.
04:58 That's just something that football is
05:01 and that you got to deal with, and next kick.
05:05 Talk about what it takes technically to do things.
05:10 Tell me a little bit about what goes through you,
05:13 about the mental part of that.
05:14 That's probably more important, isn't it,
05:15 than anything else you do?
05:17 I mean, because you're alone so much in your own head.
05:20 For sure, yeah.
05:22 I think the mental aspect is a lot more
05:25 than the physical aspect.
05:26 That's something that my coach, Dan Orner,
05:29 and Charlotte that I've trained with since I was in eighth grade,
05:32 he's always said it's 90% mental.
05:35 In the offseason, that's when you want to go back
05:39 to your mechanics, your fundamentals,
05:41 and train that stuff, because when you get in season,
05:44 you don't have time to get in your head
05:47 to think about things like that.
05:50 For me, at least, I kind of black out
05:53 when I'm out there on the field, and I let my training
05:57 and everything that I've done for the past ten years
05:59 kind of come into full swing there.
06:02 I just try to think, honestly, as little as possible
06:04 and block out the noise,
06:06 not think about anything else just other than what I need to do
06:11 to execute for my team out there,
06:13 and let it ride, let it rip.
06:17 Do you do any work with the team psychologists at all?
06:20 I have a little bit, but no, not currently.
06:24 You have to take your leg --
06:26 you're three-quarters of the way through the season.
06:28 You have to limit the number of kicks.
06:31 Be mindful of that.
06:32 Yeah, that is something late in the season.
06:35 This is week ten, something to be mindful of.
06:38 You know, everyone on the team, they get tired.
06:41 They're dinged up. Everyone's banged up.
06:45 That is something to look out for,
06:47 but they do a good job here monitoring that,
06:50 and I know what I have to do throughout the week
06:54 to get me ready for Saturday,
06:55 and even in warm-ups before a game,
06:58 there's always a rep count you don't want to go over.
07:00 How many long kicks do you try in a week?
07:03 In a week, it really just -- it varies.
07:07 It depends on how I'm feeling.
07:09 You know, if I feel like earlier in the week
07:11 I didn't get a lot of reps at that range,
07:15 maybe on Wednesday or Friday when I kick,
07:20 I might attempt a few more.
07:21 It just really varies, and it depends on my confidence level
07:25 and if I've gotten enough reps
07:27 to feel good for a long kick for Saturday.
07:29 So Wednesday and Friday are the days
07:31 you extend it a little bit and try to --
07:32 Yeah, Tuesday I kind of stay more mid-range
07:36 and just get back to my fundamental stuff,
07:38 and then Wednesday I'll probably get some more farther back,
07:43 live operations, and Friday, whatever I feel,
07:46 that I just want to get my confidence
07:48 going into Saturday for, I will.
07:50 You always end up with a made kick.
07:52 You never leave the field?
07:53 Yeah.
07:54 I guess you want to make one before you get off the field.
07:56 Going back to my superstition, yeah, I can't -- I got to.
08:00 I'll kind of throw the kick count out the door there.
08:02 I can't go off the field with a miss.
08:05 Seemly, once we learned that you were committing
08:08 and coming here, looked at some film,
08:10 watched some games of yours, things like that,
08:12 and saw a lot of a personality,
08:15 a lot of you, like, after a bowl, smoking a cigar,
08:18 kind of, like, even hyping the guys up on the sideline,
08:21 do you feel like the fans here
08:22 kind of got that full personality to you?
08:25 Have you, like, fully unleashed, like, you as a person?
08:27 I don't think I've gotten to that yet.
08:30 And what's holding you back, David?
08:31 Yeah.
08:32 A little different personality.
08:33 Yeah.
08:34 You know, the stage is bigger here.
08:35 I kind of -- you know, the pressure's higher.
08:37 The stakes are higher.
08:38 I kind of like to just worry about doing my job.
08:43 I will say, like, there,
08:44 we didn't have too much of a fan base here.
08:48 You know, I think I could get in myself a little bit more,
08:52 but I'm more worried about, you know,
08:53 executing my job and just getting it done.
08:55 And, you know, I was kind of younger back then
08:59 when I was doing that stuff.
09:00 You know, you kind of go through that phase
09:02 when you're in your younger years, around 21,
09:04 but I'm a little older here.
09:07 Yeah.
09:08 To his point, though, I mean,
09:10 look what Pat McAfee's done with his career.
09:12 Kickers, there's a room in this profession now
09:14 for free-spirited kickers, right?
09:16 For sure. For sure.
09:18 There were some fans that compared you to him
09:19 when they first learned you were coming,
09:21 and also why I kind of asked that.
09:23 Yeah, I would say more of that would probably --
09:26 you know, maybe a little bit of personality,
09:28 but he did all three here, and I did all three there.
09:32 But I'm a little bit more focused on just getting --
09:36 just executing my job and helping the team.
09:39 Mike, a lot of people talked about how you guys
09:41 have kind of changed up the personnel on kickoff,
09:43 gone a little bigger,
09:44 but also you kind of had to protect the defense
09:46 a little bit, too,
09:47 and a number of touchbacks against UCF Saturday,
09:50 whatever.
09:52 But I guess your role on that,
09:53 I mean, you're one of the 11 out there.
09:55 What do you have to do to kind of participate in that plan?
09:58 Yeah, my role is to put the ball in the end zone,
10:01 and I can do a better job of doing that,
10:04 especially from last game.
10:07 In terms of when the ball doesn't go into the end zone
10:10 as a touchback, my role is to be the safety, essentially,
10:14 and be the last guy back there to make the tackle.
10:19 I have a question.
10:20 I was just asking everybody else about this,
10:21 and you weren't able to play, but the onside kick,
10:24 you got rolled out right before that, right?
10:26 Say that again.
10:27 The onside kick against Oklahoma State, right?
10:30 You weren't on the field, I understand,
10:31 but you're involved in a lot of that stuff there, too.
10:34 I guess how rehearsed is that?
10:36 Had Danny and Leighton ever been on that before?
10:38 Like, what do you recall from that?
10:39 Obviously, a very unique perspective there.
10:41 Yeah, we practice that every week,
10:43 and that just goes back to repetition as well.
10:49 Those guys are put in a position to make a play,
10:51 and we're put in the position to get the ball
10:54 to hit a certain way onto the ground
10:56 so it can get up and be a jump ball,
10:58 essentially, to get on that and to recover it.
11:02 But that is something that we work on every week,
11:05 couple of days.
11:07 I mean, obviously, it's hard not to be out there,
11:08 but what do you think watching it?
11:09 What do you think watching it on film and how it went?
11:11 Would it have been any different if you were out there?
11:14 I think it was drawn up well.
11:15 I think it went the best way that it could have gone.
11:20 But any guy that goes in, they know the job
11:24 and what to do when they're out there.
11:27 Mike, have the coaches created any unique ways in practice
11:30 to simulate pressure situations for you?
11:34 I think during fall camp,
11:36 that's something that is definitely applied a lot more.
11:41 When the job's not really secured,
11:44 they did a really good job throughout camp.
11:48 I remember multiple situations, probably around ten,
11:51 honestly, throughout the days of camp,
11:54 where we had the whole team around us,
11:57 and they basically picked sides of who they thought
12:00 would make the kick or miss the kick,
12:02 and the team that was chosen,
12:07 that lost, that ended up losing the competition,
12:11 they would do up-downs as a punishment,
12:12 or they would have another situation
12:15 where the team would run, have sprints after.
12:18 No one wants to do that after an 85-degree practice here
12:22 in a long two-hour practice.
12:25 So that was a big thing just throughout camp
12:29 that we did a lot.
12:31 Being from Florence, South Carolina,
12:34 is your first mass exposure to West Virginians?
12:37 Everybody roaring by on their way to Myrtle Beach,
12:39 and you tell them to get out of your way,
12:41 and is it odd that you're here now?
12:44 Can you ask that again?
12:47 Being from Florence, is your first exposure
12:49 to a lot of West Virginians,
12:51 being them all coming by on the highway going to Myrtle Beach,
12:53 and probably you wanting them to get out of the way
12:56 so you can get where you want to be?
12:58 And did you think about that,
12:59 or was that odd that you wound up here?
13:03 I didn't think it was too odd.
13:04 I think it's honestly a little bit more weird
13:07 that I grew up an hour from the beach.
13:10 I actually lived in Conway for a few years,
13:12 Conway, South Carolina, 30 minutes away from Myrtle Beach,
13:15 and went on spring breaks there throughout high school,
13:19 and I just thought it was kind of interesting
13:22 that that's a big location for vacations with families
13:28 that everyone likes to go to.
13:30 I personally would personally like going to the Charleston area
13:33 a lot more since I grew up going to Myrtle Beach all the time,
13:37 but I thought that's really cool that that's a place
13:41 that people from up here like to go to.
13:45 A lot of components to your operation.
13:47 Did it take a while to adjust to those individuals
13:49 once you got here, and then all of a sudden now,
13:51 last couple games, you have to switch with Grayson Hurt
13:54 and Layton seemingly being flawless in a backup role.
13:58 So, go through that.
13:59 Yeah, Grayson did a great job since I've gotten here.
14:03 In January, throughout spring ball,
14:06 did a great job through the games
14:08 that we played up to this point.
14:11 And Layton Bechtel came in.
14:13 He did the job perfectly.
14:15 I have no complaints from either of them.
14:18 Austin Brinkman makes my job easy.
14:20 You know, without those guys, without the line blocking,
14:24 I wouldn't be having the success that I've been having.
14:29 But those guys make it easy for me.
14:32 One more here. Danny King.
14:35 Has that helped you become a better kicker,
14:36 having to compete against him?
14:38 Pretty good. Yeah, for sure.
14:41 That's something that at Georgia State
14:43 that's a difference from here.
14:46 I didn't have, you know, someone that always pushed me.
14:49 I think Danny's brought the best out of me.
14:52 I brought the best out of him.
14:53 He's a very good kicker,
14:55 field goal kicker and kickoff guy.
14:57 But for sure, I think competition
14:59 brings the best out of everyone.
15:01 And he's a good kid.
15:02 He's definitely pushed me.
15:06 Okay, Mike, thank you.
15:07 Thank you for your time.