By: Pete DiPrimio | IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – James Evans is a practical guy, a caring guy, an out-work-you guy who spent most of his formative athletic years playing rugby and squash in New Zealand.
You know. Being active. Running around stuff.
Evans is not someone who likes standing around while others work, especially when they’re striving to help Indiana win football games.
And the junior punter very much wants to help IU win.
“He cares so much,” head coach Tom Allen says.
Evans punts at a level no Hoosier has done before (see his record 43.6-yard career average), and it doesn’t happen without work. He works so much that Allen had to ask him to stop.
“He tries to kick way too much in the off-season, in the summertime,” Allen says. “He works his tail off.”
It’s paying off.
Last Saturday against Ohio State, Evans punted six times for an average of 54.2 yards, including a long of 60.
“He was excellent,” Allen says. “He’s got to do his job consistently well. He helps us flip the field.”
Evans flipped it well enough to help the Hoosiers hold Ohio State to just 23 points. The last time they did that to the Buckeyes was in 1993.
“I was on the field for only seven snaps,” he says. “Flipping the field like that is cool. I try to do whatever I can to help the team win.”
The Ray Guy Award committee noticed. They named Evans one of Ray’s 8 for that performance after earlier making him a preseason candidate for the Ray Guy Award, named after the Hall of Fame punter and presented annually to the nation’s best punter.
“For it being the first game, I punted well,” he says. “I was getting a hold of the ball pretty decently. I can improve directionally on a few of them.
“The protection was good. The guys covering the punts did a phenomenal job.”
So here is Evans, recent practice in his rear-view mirror, Indiana State (0-1) looming Friday night at Memorial Stadium, sitting at a Henke Hall table reflecting on his dilemma. If you’re a golfer with pro aspirations, you hit thousands of golf shots. If you’re a tennis player with similar goals, you pound out the ground strokes.
But if you’re a college punter and practice is in session, you watch a lot.
“I have a five-minute period in practice to punt,” he says. “Practice is two hours long. That’s a lot of free time.”
Evans doesn’t do well with free time, but he also doesn’t want to punt his way into an injury or leg fatigue.
“Now that I’m in my third year, it’s about finding ways to improve without punting so I don’t task my body as much. I get on the jugs machine. I catch snaps with (long snapper Sean Wracher). I work on holding (for place kicks).”
Evans spent the off-season kicking on a schedule similar to the regular season. Each week, he punted on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
During a game week, Tuesday is his heavy day, when he punts 50 balls. He mostly works on spirals because end-over-end punts come naturally to him.
On Thursday, he punts about 30 balls to get confidence for the upcoming game.
On Saturday, he says, “I probably kick a bit too much because you get excited and want that mental assurance that you’re hitting a good ball in the pre-game warmups. That way, come game time, you’re feeling good and confident.”
Evans certainly has co-defensive coordinator Matt Guerrieri feeling confident. Guerrieri has previously coached at Ohio State, Duke, and Lenoir-Rhyne University, and played at Davidson College, and until arriving in Bloomington last winter, had never seen someone like Evans.
“Matt was like, ‘Man, that’s the best punter I’ve ever seen on any team I’ve been a part of,’” Allen says. “I would agree. He continues to get better.”
Evans arrived in Bloomington in 2020 clueless about American football. He’d never played it or seen it. He didn’t know the rules. Because of COVID-19, he’d never been to the United States.
But Hoosier coaches knew about him and his Australian trainers Nathan Chapman and John Smith at Prokick Australian, a renowned punting-and-kicking center that had produced former IU punter Haydon Whitehead, among others. Evans’ first year he averaged 41.9 yards. Last year, it was 44.3.
“He’s a big weapon for us,” Allen says.
That includes helping ensure game-breaking returner Jaylin Lucas is fully prepared for his new punting duties.
Last season, Lucas rated among the nation’s best kickoff returners, but inconsistency on catching punts kept him from that role. Starting last January, he and Evans went to work outside, cold temperatures be darned.
“It’s a little different catching a punt than a kickoff,” Evans says. “The rotation is different. The way the ball drops is different. There was an adjustment phase. Doing it in the cold made it even harder.”
The two kept working at it as winter turned to spring, then summer.
The result — against Ohio State, Lucas returned two punts for 51 yards, with a long of 29.
“He’s progressed a lot,” Evans says. “As long as he fields it and has a little bit of space, well, you saw it on Saturday. He’s different.”
So is Evans, and the goal is to ensure that difference helps produce a Friday night victory, and a lot more.
“We need to take the positives from Week One, and there were a lot of positives,” he says. “Use this opportunity against Indiana State to grow in confidence.”
