University of Georgia Athletics
Georgia’s Specialists Have Delivered All Season
December 05, 2024 | Football, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Four men sat around a table next to Bones, the Georgia football team's training table/dining area, on a quiet Wednesday morning, but only three of them are relevant to this story. One, the kicker, is from Lafayette, La. Another, the long snapper, is from San Francisco. And the third, the punter with the great accent, is from Melbourne, Australia.
Football brought the three together, all following their unique paths to meet up in Athens. And as the fifth-ranked Bulldogs prepare to face No. 2 Texas in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta on Saturday, it's safe to say that Georgia wouldn't be where it is without the excellent play of all three of them this season.
As quarterback Carson Beck said this week about the 10-2 Bulldogs' grind-it-out season, it "hasn't been all butterflies and rainbows, win every game by 50 (or) 40. No, every game has posed a challenge and we've had to fight consistently week in and week out."
The numbers bear that out. Last season, the Bulldogs stormed through the regular season and only their 27-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game kept them out of the College Football Playoff and the chance at a third straight national championship. Georgia went 13-1 after routing Florida State in the Capital One Orange Bowl and outscored its opponents 562-219.
Through 12 games this fall, Georgia has outscored the opposition 409-246 and won three games by 10 points or less. The Bulldogs thumped Clemson 34-3 in the opener, walloped Tennessee Tech 48-3 the next week, and nearly every game since has had fourth-quarter drama. And to win a lot of tight games you need great special teams players, which the Bulldogs definitely have.
Brett Thorson, the Australian who made a huge tackle to save a touchdown against Tennessee, is a finalist for the Ray Guy Award, which goes to the nation's best punter. The junior's average of 46.95 yards per punt would rank fourth in the country if he had enough attempts to qualify for the rankings, but his 38 punts, already six more than he had all last season, are a few short. Fifteen of Thorson's 38 punts have gone for 50-plus yards and 20 have been down inside the opponent's 20-yard line.
Thorson said having to punt more often this season — he averaged 43.8 yards on 32 attempts in 2023, with six of 50-plus and 14 finishing inside the 20 — has allowed him to get in and stay in a better rhythm.
"I feel I've had more consistency this year," he said. "If you look around, everyone can kick a good ball. It's just like, what is our bad ball and how does that affect the team? Looking back, there are only a few balls that I would want to change, but then again, I got to learn from those, so I think they helped me."
Peyton Woodring, the sophomore kicker from Louisiana, grew up playing soccer and baseball. He didn't have any interest in playing football until the summer before his freshman year of Ascension Episcopal, when a coach convinced him to give kicking a shot,
"My team ended up needing a kicker, and I could kick," he said. "I realized I was OK at it, and it just kind of worked out and I ended up here."
Woodring has made 17 of 19 field-goal attempts this season — and one of the misses, a 53-yarder on the final play of the first half against Georgia Tech last week, was into a stiff headwind and was a long-shot at best. Woodring is 4-for-4 on kicks from 40-49 yards and 3-for-5 from 50-plus yards, and he has made every shorter attempt. He was a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award that goes to the nation's best kicker but somehow didn't make the final cut.
In nearly two full seasons as Georgia's kicker, Woodring has made 38 of 44 field-goal attempts and every extra point. He's been excellent on kickoffs this season, as well.
"I think that just being able to help has been big," Woodring said. "It's my second year, and not having to go through the early-season struggles, trying to figure out what my routine is and everything that I need to do to be successful — I feel like last year I kind of went through that. This year, I kind of had a head start and was able to help from the start."
In college and the NFL, making kicks of 50-plus yards is now almost routine, which feels like a big change from 10-20 yards ago. Woodring said kicking has become more popular, so more good athletes are doing it, and the training gets better and better as kickers, coaches and trainers better understand how to improve and be consistent.
"As more people are doing it, the quality has gone up with the kickers that are coming through each and every year," he said. "It's getting harder and harder to make it in the NFL because people are getting so much better."
When asked if the same thing was happening in punting, Thorson said he was the last person to ask about anything football-related that happened before he got to Georgia. Thorson grew up playing Australian rules football, which is more of a hybrid between American football, rugby and soccer, and only later, through ProKick Australia, got interested in punting.
"In the three years I've been here, I've seen it at a really high level," Thorson said, "but I would be a horrible person to ask about anything before that."
Beau Gardner's journey to Athens as a graduate transfer long snapper began in his hometown of San Francisco. An offensive and defensive lineman in high school at St. Ignatius, Gardner was introduced to snapping as a freshman. The team had an older player heading to Stanford as a snapper and Gardner soon discovered that he had a knack for it.
"Freshman year, I didn't really take it too seriously, but by the end of high school I saw it as an opportunity to play at the next level," he said.
He walked on at UCLA as a snapper in 2020, didn't see the field his first two years with the Bruins, played in three games in 2022, and was the snapper on all kicks and punts last season. Then he entered the transfer portal looking for a great opportunity, especially a program that had a really good punter and kicker. Enter Georgia.
"My first criteria was an elite program that was going to push me, and knowing I'll be surrounded by talent like Brett and Peyton, that was huge," he said. "I wanted to see a different part of the country, kind of get out of my comfort zone, and then Georgia was calling and it seemed like a good fit."
It has been a good fit all the way around (the above photo features Gardner, Woodring, Thorson and backup kicker Charlie Ham). Last week, Gardner was named one of three finalists for the Patrick Mannelly Award, given to the top long snapper in the FBS. If you're wondering how anyone can determine the best long snapper in the country, a video of every snap by Gardner this season — punts, extra points and field-goal attempts — was submitted.
Gardner said he also studies every snap, assessing every part of the process to see what he can do better the next game. Long snapper is one of those positions that's usually anonymous unless something goes awry, so it's actually a good sign if you didn't know Gardner's name.
"I like to compare it to the golf swing," Gardner said of snapping the ball on kicks and punts," The more you practice, the more swings you get, the better you get at executing the task. And I think my job directly affects how Brett can perform and how Peyton can perform. They rely on me a little bit to be really good so that they can be really good."
Georgia will face the Longhorns on the familiar turf at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the Bulldogs drilled Clemson to start the season. Woodring made two field goals in the opener, including a career-long 55-yarder, while Thorson averaged 48.0 yards on his four punts — and for those guys to do their jobs, Gardner had to do his. Just like they've done it all season.
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.
