SEMO football preview: Specialists bring their own brand of toughness to the Redhawks

At each Southeast Missouri State football practice there's a small group of players separated from the rest of the team and rarely in direct contact with the coaches.

They each have a sheet of paper that designates the specific drills included in their workout for the day, and one by one, they check items off their list.

There's little attention paid to these five Redhawks, but not because their roles lack importance to the team's success.

When it comes time for them to step on the field during the game, these players who draw few glances during practice will have the attention of all.

They are the team's kickers, punters and long snappers, and while they may not catch the game-winning touchdown pass or sack the opposing team's quarterback and force a fumble, their contributions often set their teammates up for those big plays and can be the difference between a win and a loss.

"I think some of our other guys don't think they're very tough, but they have a different kind of toughness," running backs and special teams coach Matt Martin said. "When a kicker or a punter and a snapper and a holder are out on the field everybody in the stadium has their eyes on them. Not everybody has their eyes on the left tackle or the boundary safety every single play, so if you mess up, they're going to know it. They don't have as much of the physical things all the other players have to do, but they have to be sometimes even more mentally strong."

One Redhawks specialist is a former soccer player who joined the team as a walk-on, another is a trained specialist who transferred and the third received a full scholarship after playing at a high school known for its football program.

Here are the stories of kicker Ryan McCrum, punter Alex Knight and long snapper Wade Wright, the trio that make up what has developed into an elite group of specialists for Southeast.

McCrum's move from soccer to football

Ryan McCrum focused on playing soccer in high school but has transformed into an all-conference kicker for Southeast Missouri State. (Laura Simon)

McCrum began playing soccer when he was about 4 years old and continued to play until he graduated from high school.

Playing football never really crossed his mind until the football coaches at St. Charles West High School in St. Charles, Missouri, approached him with the idea of kicking for the team when he was a sophomore.

His soccer coach at the time didn't like the idea for fear that McCrum, one of his standout players, would get injured. That coach left the school after McCrum's junior year, and he joined the Warriors' football team for his final high school season.

He continued to focus on soccer, only practicing football on Thursday mornings before school and showing up an hour or two before games on Friday night.

McCrum made five field goals and 37 PATs that year, averaged 55.6 yards per kickoff and 37.6 yards per punt.

He led the soccer team with 15 goals and 14 assists and received interest from some Division II and Division III schools for soccer but decided he wanted to take a different route.

---

A closer look at the specialists: Top players make up kickoff, punt coverage teams

---

McCrum's high school trainer made a call to one of the Southeast football coaches that she knew after his senior year to see if there was any possibility of McCrum joining the Redhawks.

The life-long soccer player was directed to send in video of his kicking to Southeast with a promise that if they were interested they'd call.

Southeast Missouri State's Ryan McCrum kicks an extra point against UT Martin during a game last season in Martin, Tenn. (Fred Lynch)

"Sure enough they called me a couple weeks later like, 'Hey, can you come down for camp to walk on right now and we'll see where it goes,'" McCrum said.

Fast forward three years and McCrum is entering his junior season as a first-team All-Ohio Valley Conference and third-team Sports Network All-American kicker.

After joining the team as a walk-on, McCrum redshirted in 2012 before starting 10 games in a rough 2013 season.

He made 2 of 6 field goal attempts -- his longest was a 38-yarder -- and 8 of 11 PATs while averaging 47.3 yards on kickoffs.

One year and a coaching change later and McCrum became one of the top kickers in the country.

He broke the school's single-season record in field goals made, connecting on 18 of 23, including four that were 50-plus yards and a career-long 55-yarder. He made 40 consecutive PATs before missing the final one of the season.

"Most rewarding is after you make a field goal you just see the coaches run up to you like, 'Yeah, good job, you did what we wanted,'" McCrum said. "That's awesome. You get that feeling like, I don't know how to describe it, it's just an overwhelming feeling like a sense of relief for myself and then joy at the same time."

He averaged 62.1 yards on kickoffs and had 31 touchbacks, greatly helping the defense with field position.

Field goals and PATs -- even with the game on the line -- aren't what makes McCrum most nervous, but rather making his kickoffs meet Martin's standard.

"If you don't kick it five yards, or even five feet, to the spot he wants it he'll let you know about it," McCrum said with a laugh. "I heard it so many times in practice. Or if I'm not kicking it deep enough -- even if it's in the right spot but it's not deep enough, I'll hear about it. I think that's more pressure. If I don't hit that perfect ball I'm coming off the field and just like, 'Dang it. I've got to do better the next time.'"

At last season's end-of-the-year awards banquet McCrum was awarded a scholarship.

One goal he's set for this season is to miss one fewer field goal than last year.

"I did what I did last year, I got the scholarship, now I need to do this again or even better to prove to them that I was deserving of the scholarship," McCrum said. "There's pressure, of course, like, 'OK, you got this award and this award,' or whatever it may be, but if I don't live up to my expectations of this season or whatever it may be I feel like I'm letting myself down. I'm always hard on myself, so I always have high expectations for myself."

Wright's training

Long snapper Wade Wright is counted on by both kicker Ryan McCrum and punter Alex Knight. (Laura Simon)

Coach Ben Bernard is the secret behind Wright's long-snapping ability, as well as countless other long snappers at the high school, collegiate and even professional level.

Wright, a senior, is from Arizona, where Bernard runs the Arizona Elite Long Snapping program.

"It's kind of cool. It's huge," Wright said. "It's like a little community of long snappers in Arizona."

During offseasons Bernard and a large group of long snappers meet at a high school gym in Arizona for an entire week.

It's there that Wright has perfected his craft, which McCrum and Knight both count on, by performing 100 to 150 snaps each day alongside NFL players who went through the program in college.

"It's all about consistency and mechanics," Wright said. "Once you get the mechanics down and you're consistent you get to a point where you don't have to think about it anymore and it just becomes like another muscle memory-type of thing that you just do in your sleep. But it's really about the mechanics. Once you get like the little techniques down it all just kind of comes together in one piece."

Wright transferred to Southeast from Glendale Community College in Arizona, the same school that former Redhawks long snapper Brandon Gabbard came from.

He showed off his accuracy to his entire team during a team finisher in fall camp. He was called upon by Matukewicz to knock a cone off defensive lineman Travis Sanders' head with a long snap and did so flawlessly, eliciting cheers from the entire team as they mobbed him.

He continues to focus on fundamentals like hand grip and placement and the flick of his wrists.

"Coach Martin always tells us, 'I don't know how to punt, kick or snap, so you guys are going to coach yourselves, like I'm depending on you guys to figure it out and get it done,'" Wright said. "It's kind of just like a self-motivated type thing."

---

A closer look at the specialists: Field goal defense critical in Redhawks' red zone success

---

Wright chose to continue long snapping in college so that he'd get a scholarship that would pay for his undergraduate education since he plans to attend medical school to become an osteopathic general surgeon.

There aren't many "oohs" and "aahs" over Wright's performance on the field, so he lives vicariously through his specialist counterparts.

"It was awesome," Wright said of the specialists' success last year. "It was super exciting for me and it's kind of like when McCrum got All-OVC it was kind of like I got All-OVC at the same time.

"It's going to be a big year for both of them, too, because I know Alex is trying to go to the next level and McCrum is on his game right now."

Knight's transformation to full-time punter

Once a place-kicker, Alex Knight is now a full-time punter for the Redhawks.

Knight spent the final three years of his high school career at perennial football power St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was a kicker, and had his eye on bigger colleges when he got a call from a member of the Southeast coaching staff with an offer for half of a scholarship.

He was unsure of whether he wanted to leave his hometown for half a scholarship but got another call from the staff a week later with a full scholarship offer.

Knight, whose team reached the 7A state championship game in Florida his senior year, signed as soon as he could.

"They were really generous with that, so I'm very blessed to be here," Knight said.

He shared time with McCrum as the kicker in 2013, making 3 of 7 field goals and 17 of 23 PATs, while also punting. He kicked off three times, averaging 39.3, and averaged 36.7 yards per punt with a season-long of 52.

He averaged 41.4 yards per punt last year with a career-long punt of 65 yards.

The new coaching staff turned him into a full-time punter as a sophomore, something he excelled in.

"Should've been all-conference last year, but I had a couple bad games and that really hurt me," Knight said when asked about the switch to punter. "I know this year I'll fix that and become better from it. It's just different. It's totally different. Like the mindset's totally different. You have to catch the ball and you have to think about the snap. But I know having Wade, he's always on point with his snaps so I never have to worry about that. But with kicking it's totally different because the ball doesn't move. It's more technique than I could ever imagine compared to kicking."

Knight has resorted to some tactics that were new to him during his transformation into a full-time punter with some suggestion from his mom.

"Honestly I'll admit I have done yoga before back home because I was not flexible enough," Knight said. "When I was a kicker you don't have to be as flexible as a punter so once I started punting more my mom made me go to yoga and it actually helped with my flexibility and my balance, but I haven't done it in a long time."

---

Read more: Redhawks return specialists ready to react

---

As a kicker his freshman season Knight got to be the hero when he made a game-winning 30-yard field goal in the Redhawks' 37-34 triple overtime win against Murray State, but those celebratory instances don't happen often in his new job.

"I don't really celebrate too much but my favorite is when we're backed up, it's almost halftime like last year against UT Martin -- we were backed up big time, Coach Tuke looks at me and he's like, 'Alex, we need a big one,' and I delivered," Knight said. "That just felt really good to see my teammates all cheering me on for something I know I can do. Helping the defense out and getting us out of a jam is my favorite thing to do because I know that's my job. You don't get a lot of credit for what you do, especially being a punter, but once you get that one opportunity and you excel, you get through it, it's awesome."

Tight-knit group

Martin paused after being asked to describe the close-knit group of specialists, a question he found particularly tough to answer.

Finally he settled on "different" before joking that specialists, "are always a little bit weird in their own right."

Southeast Missouri State kicker Ryan McCrum kicks the go-ahead extra point against Southeastern Louisiana during a game at Houck Stadium last year. (Fred Lynch)

Wright, who said they're the closest group on the team, wouldn't disagree with that, using the term "goofy," instead.

Wright and Knight are roommates ­-- a fact that was underscored in an unfortunate way by their matching charges for marijuana possession resulting from a June search of their home -- and when you throw McCrum into the mix, Wright says they're "three peas in a pod."

If you watch them closely during practices, you'll catch them dancing, but that doesn't get in the way of their work.

"We're always just wanting to help each other out like whether it be Alex holding balls for me or me catching his punts," McCrum said. "Wade's always there like, 'Hey, you want to go up to the field to snap a couple more?' Then off the field we're always hanging out with each other like just hanging out, playing games or whatever it is -- just keeping that relationship there is awesome."

Knight has no shortage of confidence in the group.

"I'm just so happy to have such a good group of guys together as specialists because we are really going to take over the OVC this year."