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After an isolating 2020, Oregon’s Australian punter went out to see America and came back better than ever. Plus: Oregon State’s chance at history, Camden Lewis’ redemption and Keith Brown’s rise.
(Photo courtesy of Eric Evans/GoDucks.com)
EUGENE — Last year when The Athletic put together a behind-the-scenes look at the 2020 Covid-19-ravaged football season, Oregon’s Tom Snee made for a compelling subject.
Snee, a punter from Australia, hasn’t been home since December of 2019 when his dad suffered a heart attack shortly after Oregon beat Utah in the Pac-12 championship game. Snee flew back to Melbourne for a handful of days and hasn’t been back since.
And though the sophomore had a career-year in 2020, the season was isolating and challenging.
“It’s hard. It is hard. I know I’ve struggled this season and this year mentally, and I know a lot of the boys on the team have. It’s hard, mate,” Snee told me last December. “There’s just no two ways about it. You can’t be isolated by yourself for months on end and not have an issue with it. It’s going to affect everybody.”
In the year since, things have gotten a lot better for Snee. The isolation inside the facility has lessened and camaraderie has actually been built among teammates.
And during the offseason, Snee went out and experienced America.
He went snowboarding at Breckinridge and rode scooters down the National Mall. He golfed his way through Texas, stopping for river swims in Austin, a boating trip in Tennessee and time on the beaches of Florida.
“(It’s meant) more than anything,” Snee said Wednesday. “We get a couple of weeks here and there off with the team and I can’t go home — it’s just not financially possible — so I have a few friends from punting around America that I’ve trained with, and with that time off I’ve made the most of it. I’ve seen a bit of the country, as well as catching up with old friends which has done a good world for me mentally.
“Just kicking with other guys — different punters always see different things and new techniques, so having other eyes to lean on has helped me as far as my kicking is concerned.”
In three games, Snee’s nine punts downed inside the 20-yard line are only two shy of the 11 he kicked in 2020’s seven games. Oregon leads the nation with opponents averaging negative-two punt return yards per game.
“It’s been gratifying coming through,” Snee said. “This last year and this year, just feeling more comfortable in my own shoes. I know the job and what’s required of me and just having that sort of mental clarity about the game has helped me a lot to take that next step.”
Said Oregon coach Mario Cristobal after Oregon’s Week 1 win over Fresno State: “Tom has worked himself into being a really good punter.”
That’s come with time and maturation, Snee said. And it’s also come as he’s grown comfortable with his temporary home.
“I’ve learned that America is pretty diverse,” he said. “It’s really interesting. Everywhere you go is a bit different in one way or another. I like the food everywhere, it’s all different and unique. And as hard as it’s been not being able to go back home, I’m grateful for those experiences and seeing the country and traveling around and sort of making the most of it.”
The Henry Katleman story was a good one, wasn’t it?
He was the mustachioed walk-on with a right leg blessed by the heavens who came on in 2020 as Oregon’s long-awaited answer to prayers about its kicking game. He made all four of his attempts after replacing Camden Lewis midseason, including a 47-yarder in the Fiesta Bowl that was Oregon’s longest since my podcast co-host in 2015.
In that sense, 2021 feels like an alternate timeline, where Lewis is still the starter and, more strangley, Lewis is making his kicks. All we’ve seen of Katleman in 2021 has been in warm-ups.
Now, a player on scholarship like Lewis, who was the No. 4 kicker in the country coming out of high school, isn’t quite as good as the walk-on story. Then again, just about everyone had Lewis’ career buried back in 2020.
Through three games, he’s perfect on his three field goal attempts and 15 extra points.
“You just can’t give up,” Lewis said Wednesday. “I knew what I was capable of and I knew what I could do. It really just came down to believing in myself and my abilities.”
After going 9-of-14 as a freshman in 2019, Lewis missed three of his first four attempts in 2020 and Cristobal made the swap with Katleman. Lewis said his career reclamation came shortly after.
“I just started having a bunch of really good practices and getting back to myself,” he said. “It was making kicks every day and doing what I could do. You need to build up over time. It was fall camp. Spring ball. In the second half of the season in practice I was doing better than I ever had, and obviously Henry was doing awesome and I couldn’t argue with that.”
But when Lewis continued to stack those good practices throughout the spring and then into the fall, it forced his coach’s hand.
“He looked good enough from practice previously to start, but it was close,” Cristobal said. “This past year, his practice reps and what he accomplished pushed ahead to the point where even though there was a guy that started at the end of the season, there was overwhelming evidence that he had to be the starter. You’ve got to believe in and trust your eyes, regardless of the noise or perception. The guy proved it. And then come game time, he’s done it thus far, knowing that that’s what it’s got to be and that’s what it’s got to look like.”
Justin Flowe became the No. 2-rated recruit to ever commit to Oregon in December of 2019 and on that same day, 2021 Oregon commit Keith Brown fired off this tweet:
Brown was a big get in his own right. A year younger than Flowe, the linebacker from Lebanon was the No. 1 player from Oregon in the 2021 class and the No. 114 player in the country. That’s nothing to slouch at. It’s just not necessarily the same company as Noah Sewell (No. 13 overall) and Flowe (No. 6 overall), the two linebackers ahead of him on the depth chart coming into camp.
I talked to Brown the day Flowe committed two years ago. He didn’t seem to think finding playing time would ever be an issue in the future, even with all that star power.
“They rotate their defenders almost every other play,” Brown said then. “It’s going to be a constant flow of good guys that are going to be out there all the time.”
Brown expected playing time as a freshman, he just might not have expected starting-in-Week 2-against-Ohio State playing time, or the expected increase now that Flowe is out for the season with a foot injury.
Then again, everything Brown’s done the past year has readied him for this moment. He opted out of his senior year of high school football, graduated early and joined Oregon for spring workouts. By fall, the true freshman had pushed his way into the two-deep.
“Luckily for him he came in January and he made up for a lot of (missing the fall) in the spring and in the summer,” Cristobal said. “Then you really saw him turning the corner towards the end of fall camp.
“A linebacker has to be able to trigger, right? Diagnose in split seconds, put his foot on the game and go make a play. And towards the end of the fall you saw that everything became clear. The game slowed down for him. But without question, those guys who missed time you could see in the early parts of spring.”
Brown got nicked up during the Ohio State game, but is back to full speed this week for the Pac-12 opener against Arizona. And while Oregon star defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux is expected back in the next couple of weeks, Brown’s emergence is key for the Ducks with Flowe on the shelf for the rest of the season.
Since taking over the program in 2018, Jonathan Smith has rebuilt Oregon State, slowly shaping the culture into one that he hopes resembles a winner.
And there have been glimpses, sure. The Beavers won four games in 2019, the program’s most since 2016. In 2020, car horns rang throughout a foggy Corvallis after OSU’s upset of the Oregon. And while Smith’s overall record at OSU is still an entire season below .500 (11-23), the Beavers’ 2-1 start here in 2021 could be a sign of a program ready to take the next step.
Oregon State needed a winning record coming out of nonconference play to position itself for a postseason berth for the first time since 2013. And the Beavers have it.
The Beavers have USC Saturday night at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. And yes, USC has already fired its coach this season, but the Trojans are still 2-1 with the second-most talented roster in the conference. Under interim head coach Donte Williams, USC put up a 45-14 win over Washington State on the Palouse last week.
This will be the toughest game the Beavers play until November. They haven’t won in that building since 1960. The season outlook will still look fine with a loss.
But the Beavers have scored on 14 of their 19 offensive series since turning to Chance Nolan at quarterback. And if that can somehow spark an upset win, it’s time to start looking at Smith and the Beavers as a legitimate conference foe.
Two things I want to end with here:
Thibodeaux has played two good quarters of football this season and has done an even better job of keeping his name in the news the with various NIL partnerships. He drew headlines with the deal he signed with United Airlines to promote the airline’s direct flights between Eugene and Columbus before the Ohio State game, and a canvas of the NFT he created with Phil Knight and Tinker Hatfield just sold for $22,000 on eBay.
It hasn’t been since Marcus Mariota that Oregon’s had a player with this much national interest. Justin Herbert is a star now, but he was mostly overlooked by the national media during his four years in Eugene. But Thibodeaux? I’m just glad I’m not the one having to write all of these breaking news notifications every time he makes another dollar.
The other thing: Midweek media availabilities are back to being in person this year. And it was talking with Snee Wednesday that I truly appreciated the nuances of a real live interview. Just being able to actually see the body language of someone you’re talking to, and being able to follow up — interject — and have some semblance of a conversation is, well, better.
For instance, there is no way I’m asking this question to Snee on Zoom:
Have a great weekend, everyone.
— Tyson
