MISSOULA — For the first two years of his college career, Montana kicker Adam Wilson thought that rugby was the sport for him.
Wilson started playing the sport his sophomore year of high school, and competed collegiately at Arizona, one of the top collegiate rugby programs in the country.
The Wildcats will enter this year ranked ninth in the nation, but Wilson won’t be with the team.
Sometime in the last year, he rediscovered his love for football, and transferred to Montana to join the Grizzlies.
“I liked rugby, at the time, a lot more, just because it was all-inclusive with running the ball, passing it, kicking it, all that stuff,” Wilson said. “But football is really what I love.”
Wilson completed the transfer and got to Missoula shortly before the start of fall practice. He drew eyes with his booming punts in fall camp and, despite losing out to incumbent punter Eric Williams, has handled kickoffs for Montana this fall.
Nearly half of his kicks have gone for touchbacks, 13 of 28, and his big leg, combined with good coverage from the Griz, have forced opponents to start on their own 20-yard line, on average, following a kickoff.
In comparison, Montana’s average start following a kickoff is on its own 28-yard line. That’s a small but significant advantage.
“It’s always about form and technique,” Wilson said. “It’s not always about getting 100 percent power into it. It’s all about placing it in the right place and kicking it where you need to kick it.”
A personal connection helped Wilson make the move to Montana.
He attended Cathedral Catholic High School in San Diego with current Griz placekicker Tim Semenza.
Defensive lineman Kyle Davis and starting running back Adam Eastwood also went to Cathedral Catholic, making it the high school outside of Montana with the most players on the Griz roster.
They’re all friends, but Wilson and Semenza were the only two in the same grade. They also played football together for the Dons, with Semenza kicking and Wilson handling the punting while also contributing as a running back and wide receiver.
“He’s a good friend,” Wilson said about Semenza. “He’s not as insane as people think he is, but he’s a really good friend. We’ve been friends for many years now, and it’s just kind of cool to be on a team with him again.”
Semenza brought Wilson’s film to the Montana coaches when Wilson decided he wanted to give football a shot again.
“He kind of let me know right before the start of summer he was trying to switch out of rugby,” Semenza said. “I was really excited for him, because he always played great in high school. He let me know he was looking for somewhere, and I knew he could be an asset to this team, so I did what I could to try to get him here.”
Converts from rugby, soccer and Australian rules football are common in the American version of the game. It’s particularly easy to transition to being a kicker or a punter, as the other versions are still more built around kicking than American football.
Current Seattle Seahawks punting sensation Michael Dickson, for example, is a former Aussie rules player. Around the Big Sky Conference, Sacramento State senior punter Owen Hoolihan is also Australian and has a similar rugby background.
Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said that, although he’s seen rugby-style kickers since the early 1990s, they are becoming more and more common.
After seeing Wilson’s tape, Hauck offered him a walk-on spot on the team.
“I was in contact with a few other schools, but it wasn’t really anything serious until I got messages from coach [Justin] Green and Hauck,” Wilson said. “It was exciting. I really felt that I had a place here and felt like I could perform well.”
As for Semenza, helping Wilson get to campus is far from his biggest contribution this year.
After missing his first extra-point attempt of the season against Northern Iowa, he’s been nearly perfect, making 14-of-15 PATs and all eight of his field goal tries.
“He’s pretty much money in the bank,” Hauck said. “You don’t get to score touchdowns every time, and when you’re down in there, you need to make kicks, and he’s been making them. That’s obviously been good for us.”
With his two field goals against Sacramento State last week, Semenza cleared the qualifying mark for career field goal and is officially the all-time leader in that category at Montana at 84.62 percent (22-for-26). His eight made field goals are the most in the Big Sky this season through four games.
Semenza was the primary kicker as a redshirt freshman in 2016 before losing the job to Brandon Purdy last year.
Purdy went 15-of-17 and earned third-team All-Big Sky honors but missed spring practices while recovering from a minor knee operation.
Semenza won the job back in the spring and during fall camp. It’s looked like the right call so far. Semenza is third among Big Sky Conference players in total scoring — first among kickers — and he and Montana State kicker Tristan Bailey are two of only four players in the conference not to miss a field goal attempt. Cody Williams of Portland State and Alex Vega of Cal Poly have only attempted four and three field goals, respectively.
“I’m not looking too much at the big picture of things, just focusing on what I need to do at that specific moment, and not letting too many factors obstruct my judgement or my play,” Semenza said. “Little stuff like that, like PATs, can creep in and really bug you, but you can’t let it do that. You have to control that, so it’s definitely been great, the support that I have from my teammates and my coaches has been amazing.”
Semenza admitted that he’s had to concentrate more on the mental side of things than making any physical adjustments.
He’s gotten help on that from Hauck, long regarded as a special teams guru.
“We work on having a mantra, so working on just running two things through my head when I’m kicking,” Semenza said. “Where my plant foot is and following through the ball. That’s what he’s been really drilling with me.”
As it stands, there’s just one challenge left for the two San Diegans, other than maintaining their good starts to the season.
“I’m just getting ready for the cold,” Wilson said. “It will be interesting to see what happens with that.”
