Rojas seizes opportunity to help team
Transfer will be the Jayhawks’ new punter and could see time as the team’s kicker as well
By B.J. Rains (Contact)
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
As a freshman at Killian High School in Miami, Fla. seven years ago, Alonso Rojas joined the football team to fulfil a lifelong dream. He wasn’t sure what position to play, but he just knew that he wanted to play football.
Rojas was taking reps at linebacker one day when the coaching staff told the team that they needed a kicker. As someone who said he would always do whatever he needed to do to help the team win, Rojas knew that he might be a decent candidate for the job.
Photo by Jon Goering
Sophomore punter Alonso Rojas practices punting during open practice Aug. 15 at Memorial Stadium. Rojas transferred to Kansas from Bowling Green and could see time as a place kicker this season.
“My coach was looking for a kicker and I told him that I played soccer,” Rojas said. “That’s basically how I got into it.”
Rojas became the team’s kicker and punter and never looked back, becoming scout.com’s top rated prep punter by the time he graduated in 2006.
Rojas played a year at Bowling Green as a true freshman in the fall of 2006 and averaged 35.6 yards per punt on 56 attempts. He also attempted three extra points, hitting two of them, and kicked off four times. But following the season he decided to transfer, saying on Tuesday that he didn’t want to discuss the reasons for his decision.
After sitting out a year in 2007 and working on his punting at clinics and camps around the country, Rojas signed with Kansas to replace Kyle Tucker as the team’s punter this year. He had planned to just punt, but after two kickers left the program during training camp, he began taking reps at his old position of kicker as well.
“Well you got one guy quit and one guy ineligible, that’s one way to separate yourself,” Mangino said of Rojas and juco transfer Grady Fowler who have now become the top two kicking candidates. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
As of now, Fowler will handle the kicking duties while Rojas will handle kickoffs and punts, but Mangino made it clear that Rojas’ kicking abilities will keep him in the mix.
“If we’d had Alonso take every rep from the beginning of camp, he’d be the guy lock, stock and barrel,” Mangino said of Rojas’ chances at place-kicker. “But we have other responsibilities. He’s going to punt, he’s going to be the kickoff guy. He’s new here. He’s never played a game for us here at Kansas so we didn’t want to load him down.”
The 6-3, 220 pound Rojas cautioned that he had plenty of time in practice to work on both kicking and punting and that neither aspect of his game should struggle because of the added workload.
Fowler struggled early in camp but won the praise and confidence of Mangino and the coaching staff with his ability to bounce back.
“He could have gotten down and felt bad for himself, but he didn’t,” Mangino said. “And that’s the thing that jumps out to us coaches. Every day he kept coming back and working on his fundamentals, and the next thing you know, he’s kicking the ball pretty well.”
Rojas has a stronger leg than Fowler, as evident by his duty as the kickoff man, meaning a situation could arise where Fowler would handle the short kicks and Rojas, who said his range was anywhere from 40 to 50 yards, could be called upon for the longer ones.
“I’m just looking forward to helping the team out as much as I can,” Rojas said. “Whether it be with field goals, kickoffs or punts, my job is to do what the coaches ask of me to do and that’s what I’m planning on doing.”
Because after all, Rojas is doing what he wanted to do his whole life. He’s playing football.
- Edited by Scott Toland
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