Battle for Oregon's starting kicker job continues as season-opener approaches
Out of all the position battles that Oregon needed to decide this fall, not many anticipated that kicker would be among the last to reach a conclusion.
But with the season-opener against Fresno State just four days away, the competition for who will be Oregon’s starting placekicker is still ongoing.
As a redshirt sophomore in 2020, Henry Katleman won over the hearts of Oregon fans when he took over the starting job midseason and went 4-for-4 on field goal attempts and 13-for-13 on extra point attempts.
Katleman replaced sophomore Camden Lewis, who was solid as a true freshman in 2019. But Lewis missed three of his first four field goals last fall and Katleman eventually stepped in.
That seemed to indicate that the job was Katleman’s for good. However, Lewis had a stellar showing during preseason camp and has climbed back into contention. As of Wednesday, the race was too close to call.
“Quite honestly the kicking competition has been real,” Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal said Wednesday. “Because Katleman wins it at the end of last year, and in the spring time he wins it.
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“But Cam comes back and, I believe, has hit 37-of-40 in camp.”
It’s quite the turnaround for Lewis, who arrived in Eugene as one of the top kickers in the 2019 class but struggled last season.
Lewis continued to handle the majority of Oregon’s kickoff duties even after Katleman took over as place kicker. He will do so again this fall.
But depending on how things go in the coming days, Lewis could very well win his old job back, too. It sounds as though it’s been very back-and-forth between the two over the last couple of days. Cristobal said Katleman hit a field goal at the end of a two-minute drill to close out Wednesday’s practice.
“If you’re going to make competition real, you’ve got to make it real,” Cristobal said. “You’ve got to let it play itself out.”
