6 1/2 SHOES ON SIZE 8 FEET : Aztec Kicker Is Ready in a Jam

Reggie Blaylock, San Diego State’s 270-pound offensive guard, was jogging slowly off the practice field this week, a slight limp in his stride. He had just been hit in the rear by a line-drive field-goal attempt off the foot of Tyler Ackerson, who had slipped on his approach to the holder.

While Blaylock was telling his laughing teammates how much pain he was in, Ackerson picked up his helmet, which tumbled off during the fall. Coach Denny Stolz was bent over laughing, but the junior kicker walked stone-faced behind holder Wayne Ross and prepared to kick again.

This time, he kicked a 60-yard field goal.

It seems as if nothing can deter the concentration of the Aztecs’ kicker, who at times can make a librarian seem like a loudmouth.

“Kickers are supposedly different, right? Well, he’s different,” Ross said of Ackerson.

“He’s really quiet. To get him to talk is like trying to get blood out of a turnip sometimes.”

But Ackerson wasn’t recruited from Southwestern College for his conversation skills. Stolz was interested in Ackerson’s strong leg.

Before the season began, Stolz billed Ackerson as a player who would make the difference for the Aztecs this season. But San Diego State hasn’t been in a situation in which a kicker could win a game.

“He hasn’t had a chance to get involved kicking field goals under pressure because we were behind quite a bit in the early games,” Stolz said. “I think the last half of the year now, he is going to be an awfully important player for us, because these games are going to be close, and obviously a lot of them will be decided by a field goal.”

That is exactly what Ackerson is hoping for. Dave Ohton, the Aztecs’ kicking coach, who perhaps knows Ackerson best, said the first-year kicker is always prepared to step in, although it’s often difficult to tell because of his quiet personality.

During one game this season, Stolz grabbed Ohton and told him the Aztecs were planning to kick a long field goal to win the game (although the Aztecs never did get good enough field position). Ohton searched for Ackerson.

“There he was sitting on the bench quietly, like he was at the park,” Ohton said. “I said, ‘Get ready,’ and he said ‘OK,’ like ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to kick the thing through.’

“Hearing that made me feel good. I guess I have gotten used to him.”

Stolz is certainly getting used to Ackerson’s consistent kicking. He is 20 of 20 on conversions and 6 of 8 on field goal attempts. He missed a 51-yarder that was wide right last week in the 44-40 loss to Stanford.

Probably what comforts the coaches most is Ackerson’s relaxed approach.

“Most field goals come at times when the game is on the line,” Ackerson said. “If you lose a game, people will look back and say, ‘Well, we lost by two and if we would have made that field goal, we would have won.’

“So almost every kick is a pressure kick, whether it is for the game or not. . . . I just try not to be nervous.”

Ross said the best example of Ackerson’s cool attitude was earlier in the season when a conversion kick barely stayed inside the left upright. Ross looked up at Ackerson, who softly said: “That was close.”

Said Ross: “That was his best response. I just started laughing.”

Perhaps Ackerson is so calm because he is so confident. He began playing football his sophomore year at Hilltop High School after being a top player on the soccer team.

His first kick in a high school game was a 42-yard field goal, pretty impressive by high school standards, especially in a junior varsity game.

Ackerson’s reaction: “I knew I could do it anyway, because I was doing it in practice. So I didn’t think that much of it.”

Ackerson’s best attribute is his strong leg and his explosive instep drive kick, which he adopted from playing soccer. He’s 6-feet 3-inches tall and weighs 200 pounds but wears a size 6 1/2 shoe while kicking. Off the field, he wears a size 8.

“He’ll cram his foot into that 6 1/2 shoe,” Ohton said. “He likes the feeling. It’s almost like kicking barefoot, but he needs the shoe.”

Said Ackerson: “It helps me having smaller feet. I can kick the ball more on my instep than on my toes.”

Ross compares Ackerson’s kicking style to a karate chop. Ackerson generates as much speed as he can on his approach, then punches the ball without a follow-through. The force at the time of the impact creates the power.

“I don’t like to have a long follow-through,” Ackerson said. “I don’t feel comfortable with it at all.”

When Ackerson was a soccer player in high school, opponents were often intimidated by his powerful leg.

Once during an indirect kick, in which the ball is placed five yards in front of the goal and the defenders stand in a line to block the ball, the defenders quickly abandoned their post as Ackerson ran toward the ball to kick.

“Usually, they stand there like tough guys,” said Jerry Hombs, Ackerson’s soccer coach at Hilltop. “But when Tyler came running toward the ball, they all scattered. He can kick the ball harder than anybody I’ve seen in 12 years of coaching.”

His powerful style is exactly what the coaches at Southwestern College needed last year when community college players began kicking off from the 35 rather than the 40.

Ackerson was known for kickoffs that went deep into the end zone. In his freshman season, against Imperial Valley, Ackerson drove nine consecutive kickoffs out of the end zone.

“He has a good, unique ability to kick the ball where he wants to, not just on field goals but on kickoffs,” said Jon Hoke, SDSU’s special teams coach. “He can do things with the ball a lot of guys can’t do. He can kick it deep, kick it high, line-drive kick it, just a lot of different things.”

Hoke’s only complaint is that sometimes Ackerson needs to adjust the height of his kicking to contend with the heavy, moist air that tends to hold the ball down a bit at most of the Aztecs’ night games at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

But put Ackerson in a high altitude area, and he unleashes the ball. In practice the Friday before the Wyoming game at Laramie, Wyo., Ackerson booted a 65-yard field goal that went beyond a retaining fence behind the goal post.

“I could have gone back farther,” Ackerson said, “but I don’t like to kick on Fridays. I had to warm up, and 65 yards isn’t as long as it sounds when you are in Wyoming.”

All right. How about 73 yards in San Diego? During the summer, Ackerson and Ross were practicing in the Aztec Bowl and Ackerson kept moving back. Finally, he boomed one and they walked it off, 73 yards, according to Ross.

“Incredible shot,” Ross said.

Said Ackerson: “I just hit it good.”

His longest in a game was a 59-yarder against Imperial Valley his freshman season at Southwestern, a school record.

“If I wanted to kick the last kick to win a ballgame, I wouldn’t be afraid to try him at 60 yards,” Stolz said. “I mean, he has that kind of a leg.”

And keeping that leg strong is a top priority of Ackerson, who often runs with the track team before football practice.

But Ackerson’s enthusiasm for conditioning does not carry over to practicing his kicking. In fact, he disdains it. For the most part, his explosive kicking style quickly taxes his legs.

“He regards kicking, and this is really extraordinary, as a such an explosive exercise, he can only do a certain amount of reps every day,” Ohton said. “I’ve never been around a kicker like him who doesn’t kick all the time.”

But that doesn’t mean Ackerson isn’t serious about what he does.

“He’s a very serious player,” Hoke said. “All you have to do is tell him what you want, and he just nods.”

A nod is enough said for Ackerson.

Aztec Notes Coach Denny Stolz said some of his team’s younger players--Nick Subis (offensive tackle), Kevin Macon (fullback), Kevin Maultsby (linebacker) and Clark Moses (defensive back)--all can expect more playing time. “They deserve to play more because they have been playing well,” Stolz said. “It would make no difference whether we are 1-6 or 6-1.”