Marshall University Athletics
BOGACZYK: Vedvik Gives Herd a Leg Up on Kickoffs
10/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By JACK BOGACZYK
HERDZONE.COM COLUMNIST
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The success of the Marshall offense designed by coordinator Bill Legg this season is well-chronicled.
How about the performance of another Herd football leg?
That would be kickoff man Kaare Vedvik, the redshirt freshman specialist who has followed in the touchback-creating steps of last season’s Herd kicking discovery of European heritage, Amoreto Curraj.
Curraj, a native of Albania who has lived in Tampa, Fla., since age 6, won the kickoff job a year ago, and went on to boot a Herd-record 52 touchbacks in 97 kicks, ranking fourth in major college football. Meanwhile, fellow recruit Vedvik was late arriving for August camp in Huntington from his home in the southwest coastal Norway city of Stavanger.
However, as the Herd (5-0, 1-0) faces Middle Tennessee (4-2, 3-0) on Homecoming Saturday at Edwards Stadium, it’s Vedvik who ranks fourth nationally with 41 kickoffs and ninth in touchbacks with 21 … and those 21 don’t even include his most impressive boot.
"When I came in here and saw (Curraj), I saw a strong leg," Vedvik said. "All I know is I’m going to compete for the job and do what I do best, and see how far I can go with it. That’s what I was thinking last year and I knew what I had to look forward to.’
Curraj has been hampered by a back injury – particularly bad for sidewinder-style kickers – since the spring. Vedvik won the job, and after Vedvik’s recent performance in a win at Old Dominion, Herd Coach Doc Holliday said, "The Albanian might have a hard time getting his job back."
Curraj (pronounced CURRY) may not return all season, which means he would redshirt a year after Vedvik did, giving Marshall two big legs for another three seasons … which could be of added importance since veteran field goal/PAT man Justin Haig is in his senior season.
As for the two European legs and Legg, Herd tight ends coach Todd Hartley – who also works with the kickers and punters – said the offensive coordinator "deserves all of the credit for Curraj and Vedvik, total credit. He found them through kicking camps and film.
"Kaare was a kid Bill saw some film on -- some foreign exchange stuff. He played his junior season in (McPherson) Kansas, then moved back to Norway. When he took his official visit, he left from Norway to come to Marshall, and went back to Norway.
"It’s a luxury of having a kid in the program like Vedvik, after Amoreto last year. If someone’s not 100 percent, you’ve got another guy just as good, someone who is doing a phenomenal job this year. He’s a real, real luxury."
In the first quarter of the victory last Saturday at Old Dominion, Vedvik was called on to kick off from the Marshall 20 after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on teammate Remi Watson after a 10-yard scoring run pushed the boot back 15 yards.
Vedvik’s boot flew a stunning 77 yards to the ODU 3, and when Vincent Lowe returned it to the Monarch 24, the hosts were still one yards shy of where they would have started with a touchback.
"Vedvik is amazing," veteran Thundering Herd radio voice Steve Cotton exclaimed on-air after the play.
It’s why the Texas-based Kohl’s Kicking Camp ranked the 6-foot-4, 199-pound Vedvik as its No. 13 prospect in the Class of 2013. He hit a 70-yard field goal at one Kohl’s training camp and converted a 57-yarder at the Texas Showcase Camp.
That said, there was a time back in Norway two years ago when Vedvik figured his hopes of playing American college football was over.
"I never, ever dreamed of being a kicker growing up," Vedvik said after a recent Herd practice. "I came to Kansas first and I mainly wanted to try football because I saw people running with the ball, scoring touchdowns and that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I went in there with the expectations of being a wide receiver, with my height.
"I had pretty decent speed, competed in track for fun, always been fast guy running with my friends back home. But it’s hard to make the transition to American football when you’ve never really played it in high school, because they’re trying to go straight in and play games. They don’t have time to teach an exchange student how to play the game.
"(The McPherson coaches) asked if there was anything else I could do. ‘We know you played soccer your whole life.’ And I saw the kicker and said I could probably do that. It was a little hard at first but once they showed me a little bit, it went pretty much straightforward after that because it’s still the motion of kicking a ball.
So, it’s kind of natural. I played soccer from age 5 until I left for Kansas. I kind of decided I wanted to try something else because I’m pretty much an adventurous person and I want to see what things have to offer."
Vedvik, 20, speaks fluent English. He said he’s anglicized the pronunciation of his first name to "Corey, because it’s the simplest for people here to pronounce it then."
And when he returned to Norway for his senior year, he went back to a science-based school because he "wanted to focus solely on classes that would get me a higher education, engineering-related, doctor-related. If you want to go into anything like that, you need science."
What he also needed – on the football field – was an opportunity, he said.
"My junior year in Kansas, nobody was looking at me (in recruiting)," Vedvik said. "I don’t know … people said I had a good enough leg to go Division I and play, but nobody ever really contacted me because they recruit kickers late.
"They told me to go to kicking camps and I went to camps and – went to several – to get a ranking. At the end I got a ranking. And that pretty much set the conditions for Marshall to give me a look."
In 2012, with Haig and Trent Martin handling kickoffs, Marshall had only six touchbacks in 74 tries. Only four teams averaged fewer yards per kick and had fewer touchbacks. Holliday wanted that flipped, and so Marshall went after Vedvik and Curraj, "taking two to make sure we had one," the Herd coach said.
"Honestly, I wanted to stay (in Kansas) my senior year," Vedvik said. "But I went back to Norway wondering if I’d have a shot to come back to the USA. Truthfully, I thought it was over after I went back home because at that moment I thought I’d have to get the offer while I was in this country and once I went back, I wouldn’t get any more looks.
"And when I went home and didn’t get any offers … I went to lot of camps (January-May 2012), many kicking camps, showcase camp, college camps, in my last semester in (McPherson) high school, I looked at it as an investment.
"I went back home in May of 2012 and after a couple months of not hearing anything basically I was in contact with a kicking coach. That summer I was invited to a scholarship camp, Kohl’s, but I didn’t have my visa, really thought it was not going to happen.
"My parents were pushing me to get a good degree and education. They didn’t understand the magnitude of what football is in the United States. They didn’t comprehend how big it is until Marshall actually contacted me and we started talking about my opportunities, and that’s when my parents understood.
"I really had nothing going for me then. It was a bad period for me, because I really wanted this, and my morale was really low but I kept on going on with every small opportunity I had. I wondered if there were any more camps with Jamie Kohl, and then I got an email from Marshall about a visit. And here I am."
And since he’s arrived, he’s switched his major from pre-med to international business.
"I was thinking of wanting to become a plastic surgeon," he said. "I actually wanted that for a while, but then you start taking classes and you learn more about what you really want. I figured out this is best way to go."
Vedvik says in the Herd locker room at times, someone will holler, "Hey Norway," and he will respond. He knows Holliday calls him "the Norwegian kicker." The Herd coach also has "the Albanian kicker." Vedvik paused and considered the Herd’s offensive tackle, Sebastian Johansson, a native of Sweden.
"They call him ‘Swede,’" Vedvik said. "It’s easier by nationality, I guess. It’s funny."
And Marshall’s kickoff game -- with Vedvik following the Holliday-desired scheme and booting the ball high and to his left one-fourth or one-third of the opponents’ end zone -- is no laughing matter.
It’s "Corry" and Curry.
"Both are really good at what we want them to do," Hartley said. "Ours is a little different from what most people do, with ball placement, down in that corner, but what they both do is they have phenomenal leg strength. We went from six touchbacks to 52 last year. It’s nothing I did, nothing we coaches did. It’s a God-given talent and Kaare’s kicking it into the end zone.
"When Amoreto comes back, we’ve got to find a role for both of them because when you’ve got two guys with right legs like that … maybe we start getting field goals little deeper. Justin Haig’s doing great job as he has, but he’s senior, and these two guys are special.
"Amoreto -- you don’t know – those backs are funny, and it’s so important for a kicker. Right now, hopefully we don’t have to play him and then he can redshirt and he has three years, and Kaare has three years. We’re going to be set there for a while. That’s a good feeling."
