Jump to content

Dicker The Kicker

Shaggy3.0

By Shaggy3.0
in Football

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 628
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

Rimbo
Rimbo

This is greatness. Get sound on.

TreatyOak
TreatyOak
shadow_operative
shadow_operative

dicker just gonna spend the rest of his days roaming the league, walking off random games for a different team each week.

Posted Images

Slacks

Slacks 6791

Posted
Posted
Do kickers usually get a lot of pussy? Quarterbacks, yes; kickers, well . . .
So... I'll tell you a true story...

When I was a sophomore, living on the 1st floor of Jester West, there was this short pudgy, goofy looking dude... he had different hot chicks every gotdamn week... I thought I was the shit, as I had a few chicks and a girlfriend, but this dude was lapping the field.

So, one day, I say, "Damn, you're cool and all, but you aren't that fucking cool..." and knowing that a couple doors down were some guys who moving large amounts of dope (like brining heroin in from Pakistan via Africa) I asked, "So are you with these guys or what? How do you always have the hottest bitches on the floor?"

He says, "Nah, man, I'm on the football team."

"Man, gtfoh with that. you're like 5'7" and that's probably your 40 time, too... "

"Yeah, I'm a walk-on kicker... I don't really do shit. As far as these chicks are concerned, I might as well be Peter Gardere."

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 3
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52342

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Snacks said:

So... I'll tell you a true story...

When I was a sophomore, living on the 1st floor of Jester West, there was this short pudgy, goofy looking dude... he had different hot chicks every gotdamn week... I thought I was the shit, as I had a few chicks and a girlfriend, but this dude was lapping the field.

So, one day, I say, "Damn, you're cool and all, but you aren't that fucking cool..." and knowing that a couple doors down were some guys who moving large amounts of dope (like brining heroin in from Pakistan via Africa) I asked, "So are you with these guys or what? How do you always have the hottest bitches on the floor?"

He says, "Nah, man, I'm on the football team."

"Man, gtfoh with that. you're like 5'7" and that's probably your 40 time, too... "

"Yeah, I'm a walk-on kicker... I don't really do shit. As far as these chicks are concerned, I might as well be Peter Gardere."
 

And that’s when snacks decided to walk on. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 5 weeks later...
SEC

SEC 1174

Posted
Posted (edited)

I didn't realize til just now that one his makes last night was 57 yards.

This dude is seriously good.

One of my favorite things about this current texas team is how there is star power all over the field. Even the kicker is a fucking stud.

Edited by BigXII
Link to comment
Share on other sites
SEC

SEC 1174

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

That was the most excited I got, that motherfucker would have been good from 65

apparently the single longest kick in UT history since they changed the kicking rules in 1989.

I can't believe how good Dicker is. Definitely one of my favorite players on the roster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
Machinator

Machinator 32097

Posted
Posted

From Kaelen Jones:

A year after ‘Dicker the Kicker’ hit the game-winner vs. Oklahoma, he’s still bringing Texas good vibes

AUSTIN, Texas — This weekend, No. 11 Texas faces No. 6 Oklahoma in the Red River Showdown at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. A year ago, the matchup turned into one of the season’s most epic contests. But the finish was perhaps more nerve-wracking for the family of the game’s eventual hero than anyone else inside the half-Boomer Sooner, half-Hook ’em stadium that afternoon.

Could similar drama be in store this Saturday in Fair Park?

The Longhorns entered the fourth quarter last season leading 45-24. But around the time the Sooners trimmed their deficit to 14 points with 8:28 remaining, Kelly Dicker came to a realization. Seated near midfield behind UT’s sideline, next to his wife, Rachel, and daughter, Annabelle, he turned. Looking Rachel in the eye, he said, “Yeah, it could come down to a kick.”

A dad’s premonition, perhaps.

The Longhorns’ lead evaporated after touchdown carries by Kyler Murray and Trey Sermon, the latter tying the score with 2:38 left to play. If UT sustained a lengthy-enough drive, the game’s outcome would rest on the foot of Cameron Dicker, Kelly’s son and Texas’ true freshman kicker.

“The buildup to the moment was probably more pressure for me in the sense that they were driving,” Kelly said. “It was a long drive. The clock was running down, so we knew that they were either going to go in to score or get them into the range he needed to make that kick.”

And so it began. The Longhorns offense — which had struggled in the final quarter — put together a drive, at last. When quarterback Sam Ehlinger completed a 7-yard pass to tight end Andrew Beck while facing second-and-10 from the Sooners 43 with less than two minutes left, it effectively put UT within Dicker’s field goal range. Kelly, who described the play as the most intense portion of the game for him, relaxed a bit.

Meanwhile, at field level, Cameron displayed no signs of pressure. Ehlinger plowed through a pair of Oklahoma defenders, converting a third-and-3 at the Sooners 32 with 1:18 left. After a replay, the TV broadcast immediately cut to Dicker, who was looking around seemingly at nothing, before grinning on UT’s sideline. As a graphic displayed Dicker statistics — 6-of-9, with a career-long of 46 at the time, having drilled a 44-yarder earlier in the game — he nodded, then winked at linebacker Joseph Ossai. The interaction has been memorialized forever in GIF form as a social-media delight among UT fans.

“I just kind of saw (Ossai), we made eye contact and we kind of started laughing,” Dicker said, “and so it just led to that.”

“That was our thing,” Ossai added, “because there’s a lot of pressure on those guys, you know? They have such a little job, but it means a lot. Everybody’s watching, so before and after every kick, I would hug him and say, ‘No matter what, I still love you, bruh.'”

Based on his disposition, one wouldn’t have known Dicker was about to attempt a high-pressure kick in one of college football’s most historic venues in one of its most storied rivalries. Not to mention, from a distance that was anything but a gimme.

Three plays later, Ehlinger carried for 1 yard, setting up Dicker for a 40-yard field goal attempt with 14 seconds left. Dicker had missed his last three attempts from 40 yards or more, but Kelly said he felt “much more comfortable and much more at ease at it by the time they got the ball down, and he had to kick it.”

Dicker took three quick steps before swinging his right foot through the ball, curling it perfectly, down the middle of the uprights. He smoothly raised a hook ’em in the air as his freshmen special team counterparts, punter Ryan Bujcevski and long-snapper Justin Mader, jumped in celebration with him. The Longhorns ended a two-game losing streak to OU with the win.

“He hit it. Dicker. The Kicker,” Fox announcer Gus Johnson memorably called it live. “48-45 Texas.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Dicker said of the conversion. “It’s something that you never really think about, and something every kicker dreams of.”

By then, Kelly was ecstatic, but not surprised.

“I was 100 percent confident,” he said. “I knew he was going to make it.”

Even before Cameron Dicker etched his name into the lore of the Red River Showdown, he was boasting the same unbothered confidence he exudes today. His father described him as a calm individual who likes to have fun. He added that he holds a jovial, happy and focused spirit.

“(Cameron’s) always had the ability to, in that moment, really switch off all exterior pressures or everything that’s going around him and focus on the sport or the activity that he’s doing in that moment,” Kelly said. “And I think that’s one of the great skills that he’s developed over the years, is the ability to, once he walks on the field, he’s able to focus solely on what he needs to do or what task he needs to complete.”

These days, his personality is unquestionably familiar to his teammates.

“He’s goofy,” Ossai said.

“He always has a smile on his face,” Ehlinger added. “No situation is too stressful or too serious for him. He’s always enjoying the moment, enjoying the people that he’s with and he brings good vibes to everybody.”

Dicker first picked up sports when he was around 3 or 4, playing soccer while living in China. Kelly, who works in supply chain management providing industrial components, fasteners and parts to manufacturers, was stationed abroad at the time, with the family living in Taiwan and Shanghai.

Dicker picked up football in fifth grade, when some American expatriate fathers started a small team called the Shanghai Dragons, rallying enough kids to play 11-on-11 with two subs per team, staging the season in the fall.

Dicker’s first exposure to the game saw him work among the front seven on both sides of the ball.

In 2011, before Dicker entered sixth grade, Kelly’s job provided the family a chance to move again. This time they landed in Austin, bringing him back stateside after 13 years.

Dicker continued playing soccer, where he posed a physical presence at center back. He didn’t resume football until the next year, and when he did, he was placed at right guard and middle linebacker. But he also began kicking. He was so physically mature that he was the leading tackler on kickoffs. Kelly estimates Cameron was also out-kicking kids his age by 10 or 15 yards, too.

Dicker’s kicking prowess in middle school caught the eye of his eventual coaches at Lake Travis, a football powerhouse in Austin. Cavaliers coach Hank Carter recalled first seeing Dicker in eighth grade, and even then, “he had a much, much stronger leg and just was a pretty advanced kicker for a middle school player.”

The skill set translated to high school. So did Dicker’s penchant for physicality. During a team swim party, as the players wrestled in the pool, Dicker stood out as “a force” in the midst of the fray.

Most kickers Carter had fielded weren’t typically competitive. Dicker was “ultra competitive,” though.

“I don’t know of any kickers that you could say that about,” Carter said. “But Cameron — he’s a unique guy.”

Dicker’s gritty background in soccer served him well. His freshman year at Lake Travis, he even delivered a big sideline hit while covering a kickoff that impressed Carter. Simultaneously, Dicker’s leg strength continued to increase. It became clear to the Cavaliers coaches that he could have a career in the game.

“I can remember putting my arm around him as a freshman,” Carter said. “I said, ‘Buddy, you’re not gonna believe me, but one day, you’re gonna have a chance to maybe go play in the NFL as a kicker, and you’re gonna be a football player that used to play soccer.'”

“They recognized something in him at a very young age,” Kelly added. “And they encouraged him to focus on the thing that he found a passion for, which was kicking.”

Dicker thrived as a specialist. Carter said his staff was confident in Dicker from up to 55 yards out. Current Longhorns junior tight end Cade Brewer, who served as Dicker’s holder on field goals during his junior and senior year at Lake Travis, said he knew Dicker was talented as a sophomore.

“I knew he had a future kicking the football,” Brewer said.

Playing under the bright lights at Lake Travis Stadium didn’t ever seem to bother Dicker. In fact, Kelly attests it had the opposite effect, exposing him to kicking in high-pressure situations and in front of the large, rowdy Texas high school crowds.

And those were the moments where he seemed to step up in the most.

As a junior and senior, Dicker made game-winning field goals against Cibolo Steele, where current Longhorns sophomore safety Caden Sterns played. Both were from beyond 40 yards, and the first came in a double-overtime win. In his senior year, during a second-round playoff game against Congress, he executed a middle onside kick “absolutely perfectly” inside of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, his eventual college home.

“He doesn’t get fazed by stuff,” Carter said. “I think some of the qualities that make you a great kicker and a great punter are the same that would make you a great golfer.  It’s that you’re not really fazed by things. Cameron has always had that. He expects to make every kick that he lines up. If he misses one, he doesn’t let it affect the next one. And I really don’t think he’s ever let the pressure get to him. He has a unique way of dealing with that.”

Dicker, ranked the No. 4 kicker nationally in the 2018 class, committed to play for the Longhorns in May 2017. It was during recruiting visits that Dicker first developed a relationship with Ossai, who’s now one of UT’s most physical and productive defensive players. The two worked out over the summer together, participating in freshmen activities and attending meetings alongside another, too.

Dicker, 6-foot-1, 205 pounds, isn’t necessarily shy about his confidence. Perhaps that’s for good reason. He set the Longhorns freshman record for field goals when he made 18 of 25 last year, notching second-team All-Big 12 honors. Also, 52 of 83 kickoffs went for touchbacks in his first season.

He’s carried that strong form into 2019, setting a career-high against Rice at NRG Stadium in Houston when he drilled a 57-yarder. He’s 4-of-6 on field goal attempts this year. He did miss a 42-yard attempt last week in the win at West Virginia.

“I feel comfortable from, I’d say, for sure, 50-in,” he said. “I’d like to 100 percent make those, and then from 50-back is, ‘Let’s go with it. Let’s have fun.'”

Yet, his confidence doesn’t come off as arrogant.

“No, not at all,” Ehlinger said of Dicker. Instead, the signal caller said the popular GIF of him winking at Ossai is a perfect encapsulation of a player who enjoys the moment seemingly all the time.

Dicker’s personality has rubbed off on head coach Tom Herman, who often refers to his specialist simply as “Kicker!” Herman, though, is quick to correct himself.

“I don’t know if he’ll say it,” Dicker said of Herman, “but I think he enjoys us more this year. The last couple years, I think he knows that we like to have fun.”

But when it’s time to focus, Dicker still manages to zone in.

It’s why Kelly expects him to always come through when he lines up for an attempt. Being a kicker’s father, he understands the scrutiny that can await a miss. Dicker’s grandfather, Richard, who was in attendance for last year’s epic Red River Showdown, has a saying that Kelly refers to.

“Some days,” Richard said, “you’re the pigeon. Some days you’re the statue.”

“Watching Cameron, my expectation is Cameron hits 100 percent of his kicks,” Kelly said. “I’m also his dad and probably one of his harshest critics. But I also know that as a kicker, you are going to have misses. And I always look at it as if the program believes in him, which I see they do, they’re going to give them a chance. And they’re going to always give them that chance to go out and prove that he can put the ball through the uprights. So I always look at every opportunity he gets when he goes out to kick that ball that he’s going to make it.”

Herman has expressed confidence in him, referring to Dicker as a weapon. He also speaks of a walk-off 58-yarder Dicker converted during a scrimmage during a practice this season. There’s a clear trust for Dicker, who plays a position often defined by extremes.

“I think our kicker is pretty dang good,” Herman said in August. “I’m not afraid to say that. It’s a luxury. It’s rare to find one that is that talented but yet mentally is in a really, really good place.”

So, if the Longhorns find themselves in a familiar situation against the Sooners this Saturday, there will be little worry along their sidelines. He stepped into “immortality” as Fox’s Johnson described when Dicker connected on that fateful field goal a year ago.

“There are a lot of good guys that have come through (UT),” Dicker said. “I feel like it’s just cool to be able to come and try to be one of those guys and be someone that is a name that people remember.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 10 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...