Mark Stoops names starting punter ahead of season opener

There were several ORs listed on the first Kentucky football depth chart of the season among starters, namely at Mike Linebacker (D’Eryk Jackson OR Daveren Rayner), Sam/Nickel (Alex Afari Jr. OR Tyreese Fearbry), Free Safety (Jordan Lovett OR Ty Bryant) and Field Cornerback (JQ Hardaway OR Jantzen Dunn). Those have not been finalized going into the home opener against Southern Miss on Saturday.

One OR has been scratched off the list, though, Mark Stoops announced late Monday evening. That comes at Punter, a head-to-head battle between sophomore Wilson Berry and junior Aidan Laros throughout fall camp.

The winner?

“I think it’ll be Wilson (Berry) at this point in time after what I saw today,” Stoops said during his call-in radio show on Monday. “It’s been close through camp, but he was pretty consistent today. … Aidan will be the backup punter.”

Berry wrapped up his sophomore campaign in Lexington with a 39.7-yard average (9th in the SEC) on 56 punts with 13 inside the 20-yard line and nine 50-plus yarders. A few highs, but significantly more lows, Stoops pulling no punches when addressing the Australian punter’s play up to this point.

He made it clear production must improve with that unit, but believes Berry is the guy to do that — at least going into week one.

“We miss-hit a couple of kicks and it cost us major field position,” he said of Kentucky’s punting situation a season ago. “With punts in this league, if you hit some bad punts with no hang time and they go straight to somebody, you’re going to be in a world of hurt. He’s just been more consistent and we’ll see where it goes.”

Stoops stressed consistency with the punting unit during his first game-week press conference of the season earlier in the day, noting both Berry and Laros had a shot to claim the starting position.

“We’ve constantly talked about it, just to be more consistent with the punting game. I think Wilson (Berry) and Aidan (Laros), bringing in Aidan, he has an opportunity as well,” he said. “Aidan is also very strong with kickoffs along with Jacob (Kauwe), between Aidan and Jacob our kickoffs should be pretty deep and we should have high kicks and be able to cover, and not run into some of the problems that we did late last year.”

Laros may have been the bigger leg as a transfer from UT-Martin, but Berry was able to put together the better, more consistent camp. Now he’s been named starter.