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QuickTake:
Before he was one of the nation's top punters, Bailey Ettridge spent a decade working as a welder in Australia. He's not taking his second career for granted.
Bailey Ettridge found himself in a bit of an awkward spot.
The sophomore punter was coming off one of the best games of his career. After kicking six punts for 289 yards against UCLA, he was named the Ray Guy Award’s Punter of the Week.
But if a team’s punter is getting plenty of work, well, said team likely isn’t doing all that well. That was certainly the case for Ettridge’s Oregon Ducks, whose 17-15 loss to UCLA on Saturday dropped their record to 3-2.
So has Ettridge been able to enjoy any of his own accolades?
“Not really,” Ettridge said. “I mean, you sort of know you had a good game, but that’s what I’m here to do. I was recruited to perform and kick the way I’m kicking, so it’s nothing really to celebrate.
“You just got to keep doing it week in, week out.”
It’s a lunch-pail mentality, one that has Ettridge showing up for work and grinding away at a job that most weeks doesn’t come with much recognition. And it’s the best job Ettridge, who has 10 years of work history on his LinkedIn, has ever had.
“I would much rather do this than weld,” Ettridge said.
He would know.
Before arriving in Eugene as a 28-year-old sophomore, Ettridge was an Australian rules football player who began a four-year apprenticeship to become a boilermaker at the age of 16.
“The toughest days were, I don’t know, kind of every day,” Ettridge said. “Waking up doing the same thing. It’s 6 a.m., cold, going to a construction site and maybe it’s raining … that’s probably the toughest thing about it.”
But it was rewarding, too. Ettridge took pride in finishing big jobs, like helping build a house, or creating something in the workshop and seeing it used in the field. He was good at his job, disciplined and worked his way up the ranks at Thornton Engineering before taking a full-time boilermaker job with Hamilton Group that would change his life.
It was a better job, certainly. But it was also where he met Scott Crough, a painter who, in a past life, had been part of the first wave of Australian punters trying to break into American football.
Crough had tryouts with several NFL teams in 2011, signed with the Calgary Stampeders in 2012 and, after a back injury derailed his career, made one last attempt at professional football as a 41-year-old in 2022 with the Edmonton Elks.
When he was released that May, he returned to Australia and eventually became co-workers with Ettridge.
“Somewhere along the way, American football came up in conversation, and I started telling him about my experiences punting in the States and Canada,” Crough said. “Bailey was really interested and mentioned that he’d always wanted to give it a go. One conversation led to another, and I eventually brought in one of my old footballs and told him to have a kick and see what he could do with a proper American football.”
Oh, Ettridge could boot it.
“I still have the first video he sent me,” Crough said. “I could immediately see the natural power and timing he possessed. Having done some coaching with Prokick Australia, I had a reasonable understanding of what it took to make it as a punter. I could see that Bailey had the raw attributes to enter the Prokick Academy and, at the very least, give himself a genuine opportunity to have a great college football career.
“Obviously, having the natural ability is only part of it, and Bailey has had to put in the work himself to get where he is today.”
From there, things moved pretty fast.
Crough introduced Ettridge to the people at Prokick Australia — a training program that helps Australian athletes transition into American football. He joined in 2024, flourished and earned a scholarship to Nevada. As a 27-year-old freshman in Reno, he averaged 44.7 yards per punt, earned All-Mountain West honorable mention recognition and found his way onto Oregon’s radar.
The Ducks were coming off a season in which another Australian, James Ferguson-Reynolds, had handled the punting duties. And special teams coach Joe Lorig was plenty familiar with recruiting and coaching Aussies, having worked with Australian punters dating back to his Memphis days in 2016.
“When I grew up, we always just threw the ball all the time — playing basketball, four square, throwing a football,” Lorig said. “In Australia, they literally grow up kicking the ball to each other. They call it “footy” and it’s just as natural to them as throwing a ball was to me as a kid.
“And I tease (Ettridge) a lot because he’s older, and he should get teased for that, but you kind of like that maturity. It brings a level of understanding.”
Ettridge is still getting better, too.
“Even his mis-hits can be pretty penetrating, which gives you an indication of the natural power he possesses,” Crough said. “What’s particularly exciting is that he’s only been punting for a couple of years, so he’s still got plenty of development ahead of him.”
It’s a grind, but Ettridge doesn’t have to look far these days to know it’s worth it.
Every day at practice, Ettridge can look over at the construction taking place at Oregon’s new practice facility. He sees people showing up for work each morning, putting that massive structure together piece by piece. It’s a process that can seem slow from one day to the next, but eventually adds up to something enormous.
He knows what that work looks like. And he knows which side of the construction fence he’d rather be on.
“It can get pretty repetitive here, but we get to be here every day playing football, a game we love in front of all these fans,” he said. “There’s harder things in life than playing football.”
