Nebraska Football Spring Look Back: Specialists

We wrap up our spring football positional recaps by giving our final take on Nebraska’s kickers and punters…

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The Huskers made huge strides on special teams personnel-wise during the offseason. Nebraska promoted Bill Busch to special teams coordinator and added FCS Punter of the Year Brian Buschini and a scholarship kicker in FCS transfer Timmy Bleekrode.

But as we saw in the spring game, the kicking game still has improvements. In fact, it’s impossible to decide if the kicking game is up to par until deep into the season.

Buschini bombed a 63-yard punt on his first punt in front of fans in Memorial Stadium. For the rest of the game, he punted inconsistently as he shanked two punts out of bounds, including a 14-yarder and a 32-yarder.

He had eight punts for 388 yards and averaged 40.2 yards per punt during the Red-White scrimmage. Buschini pinned two punts inside the 20-yard line and one was a touchback.

With two punts over 60 yards and Buschini’s performance at Montana, Buschini still has a bright future at Nebraska in his remaining three seasons of eligibility but needs to focus on consistency.

Nebraska’s kicking game during the Red-White scrimmage wasn’t as brilliant as fans had hoped. Buschini had three punts of 32 yards or less and placekicker Chase Contreraz missed a 42-yard field goal.

Buschini has proven he has the leg to get the job done, he just needs to find a way to eliminate the bad punts.

Wind could have been a factor in some of these kicks, with gusts of up to 20 mph. However, both Buschini and Contrarez should be used to kicking in the wind.

The Huskers struggled desperately with its special teams on every level last season. They brought in Buschini and two placekickers to help with consistency to be able to rely on the kicking game.

With the emphasis Nebraska has put on special teams during the offseason and the spring, it’s surprising they had so many errors during the spring game.

Buschini was named the FCS Punter of the Year in 2021 but had a rollercoaster spring game.

As for the placekicking, Contreraz started NU’s final four games at placekicker and made all 11 of his PAT attempts but went 2-for-4 on field goals. Nebraska is relying heavily on Bleekrode to be that guy for them when he arrives on campus in the middle of May.

Special teams lost the Huskers several games last season and they know how important it is to workshop the phase. There weren’t expected to be perfect during the spring game but to see four mistakes just like the ones from 2021 was unexpected.

Kicker Timmy Bleekrode from Furman University will join the Huskers during the summer and make a big impact on its placekicking game. At the FCS level, Bleekrode went 15-for-18 during the 2021 season with a career-high 51-yard field goal.

Bleekrode also punted for the Paladins. He averaged 42.2 yards per punt on his 52 attempts in 2021 and 43.6 yards per punt in 2020. His career-long punt is 69 yards and had 11 punts of over 50 yards in the 2021 season.

Freshman Charlie Weinrich, also arriving this summer, was one of the top placekickers in the 2021 recruiting class. Weinrich went 40-for-41 on PATs during his senior season at Blue Valley High School in Leawood, Kansas. He had a career-long 57-yard field goal of his seven made field goals.

Nebraska has two big legs ready to make an impact on its kicking game.