By
News Desk
Nobody cheers for the punter like fans in Iowa. Tory Taylor brought the Kinnick faithful to their feet every time the punting unit came onto the field. The Hawkeyes seem to have found their heir apparent to the Ray Guy winner.
Freshman Rhys Dakin already has a Big Ten special teams’ player of the week award under his belt. But against Northwestern Dakin downed four punts inside the Wildcats six. And that special teams magic we all witnessed during Taylor’s tenure started to energize the crowd.
“It gets me going, I was jumping around.” Dakin said.
The Hawkeyes notched their first safety of the season off of a Dakin boot to the four, and gave Kirk Ferentz something to think about in the shower.
“I don’t know why; I think of weird things in the shower all the time.” Ferentz said. “But I was thinking about what he was doing and some other options we might have had as a punter, and you never know. Now you’re talking about Australia, which has been good to us but that doesn’t mean every guy that grew up in Australia is going to pay off.”
Before Rhys Dakin could figure things out on fourth down he had to adapt to his new home 10,000 miles away from home.
“I found out how to pay my own rent and car insurance,” Dakin said of challenges he faced moving from Australia. “There’s definitely some adult stuff I’ve come to learn.”
Connecting with his family is even more difficult, Dakin says he’s able to talk to his father once a week over WhatsApp. The 19-year-old Dakin has worked through early season woes on the field to become one of the best punters in the game. Iowa’s own has the most punts inside the 20-yard line in college football.
“I think the thing I’ve been most impressed with him is just his maturity and his ability to really practice well” Kirk Ferentz said. “Which for young guys is not usually that easy, but he’s really serious out there on the field. He works at it. He’s not happy when he hits a bad one. He’ll occasionally do that. He hit a couple this morning.”
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