Being a kicker is one of the hardest positions in sports, let alone football. They don’t get as many reps as position players, yet every rep they have could swing the tide of a game.
They’re expected to be perfect.
It’s also a very polarizing position because if the kicker nails the game-winning field goal or have a big game and make multiple field goals he becomes a hero. However, if he misses a kick that later comes back to bite the team in the end, no one wants to be around him.
The position naturally comes with a lot of adversity. When you add in replacing a school’s all-time leading scorer, the job becomes that much more difficult.
Missouri redshirt freshman kicker Blake Craig has that job. He’s replacing Harrison Mevis, who broke Mizzou’s all-time scoring record last season. The pressure of replacing someone in the history books can be scary. Or if you’re Craig, it can be motivating and a confidence boost.
“I think seeing Harrison break the records he did and doing the things he did honestly just gives me confidence because this school, this coaching staff, they believe in special teams here and that’s what we do,” Craig said. “Being with him here for a year kind of built my confidence even more to know I can run my own race and feel comfortable with that. So, I don’t really feel any pressure with that.”
It takes a lot to be able to fill the shoes of someone dubbed the “Thiccer Kicker,” although Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz joked at his Tuesday press conference that Craig and Mevis wear the same size in shoes, it’s the jersey that Craig would be unable to fill out.
This isn't the first time Craig has had to wait his turn and step into a role no one was sure he could fill.
Craig has always been competitive, dating back to when he was a tyke playing rec league soccer, something that didn’t last long. When his dad, Ernie Craig, saw the ferocity and edge his son played with, that's when he knew Blake had a chance to go somewhere with sports.
“When I noticed that he had this ultra-competitive kind of demeanor, then I knew, ‘All right, we have something we can really work with here,’” Ernie said. “So, we only played recreational soccer for maybe a year. So at five, we immediately went to club and played at that club level, because he just would, once he got introduced to it, then he just wouldn't put the ball down.”
Ernie couldn’t pinpoint a certain game or performance that Blake had that made him stand out, but he noticed how coachable Craig was and how quickly he’d go from learning something to implementing it in practice or at games.
This would lead to him developing his “elite edge” nearly a decade and a half before coming to Mizzou.
“He was very skillful on the soccer field,” Ernie said. “He just had this soccer IQ is what I call it, where he just understood the game around him and put the pieces and parts together to anticipate what to do before the play actually evolved.
“That's where I think he got kind of got that elite edge, where he was able to play in that kind of central area of the field as that midfielder, to be able to anticipate, ‘Hey, we have an attacking opportunity,’ to see it before it happened, and then be able to distribute the ball in a way that put us in really good positions to always be scoring as well.”
However, it wasn’t until Craig was a freshman in high school that he started playing football. The Liberty North High School football coaches approached the soccer team wondering if any of them wanted to try their hand – or foot — at football.
Current Liberty North head coach Andy Lierman, who was an assistant at the time, remembers his first thoughts about Blake.
“He was just a little scrawny kid when we first saw him,” Lierman said with a chuckle. “I mean, freshman kid that came out in the summer with us before the season started, and kind of started kicking around with our special teams coordinator. It looked like he had some potential, but wasn't very big, wasn't very strong at the time.”
When Blake joined the team, he was behind Brady Pohl on the depth chart, who at the time was a senior kicker who’d go on to play at Oklahoma State and Eastern Michigan.
It was a prelude to what Blake would experience as a freshman in high school.
“I think it’s been great to have older guys as mentors,” Blake said. “I think that it’s great to learn from someone who has done it before because they can prepare you a lot with not just the physical side, but the mental side. So, that you can have that confidence going into every game knowing someone else has done it.”
However, Pohl dealt with some injuries his senior year, which led to Blake playing more than a backup kicker typically would. That's to say, playing at all.
He'd become the starter his sophomore year and make 8-of-9 field goals and 44-of-45 PATs. He was still playing soccer, but it was around this time that Ernie and the Liberty North coaches told Blake he probably needed to pick a sport and give his all to whichever one he chose.
“We were literally on a trip back from a big soccer showcase in Bradenton, Florida, and we were in the airport on our way back and he talked to me, my wife Angie, and (Blake’s sister) Peyton and was like, ‘You know what? I think I'm ready to prioritize football,’” Ernie said. “Nothing happened at all. He had a great weekend, great game and everything. But it just hit him. He had some time to process, and he kind of made that decision, and he finished that season out.”
The decision took Blake quite awhile to process, but ultimately, he believed football could take him further than soccer could.
“I remember trying to make a decision whether or not to try and get recruited for football or soccer. My head coach told me, ‘You can be great at one thing or good at two things,’” Blake recalled. “That was kind of like a, ‘What do I think I can be the best at?’ Then, I just had the confidence that kicking would take me further where I wanted to be. I think that I built a lot of great relationships through football that I don’t think I would have through the soccer environment I was in.”
Lierman said there was something about playing on Friday nights that Blake gravitated to, and he made it clear that the team wasn’t going to make him stop playing soccer. They just wanted to let him know how far they think he could go if he locked in on one sport.
“I think he enjoyed the atmosphere here as far as a high school football game. I think it’s just kind of that adrenaline rush, if you will, that I think he really enjoyed,” Lierman said. “We sat down and talked with his folks and with Blake, and just explained to him that he's a good soccer player, but we feel like he's got the potential to do exactly what he's doing now, which is a Division I kicker, and then possibly go on to do other things if he wants to.
“We try our best not to push the kid either way if he still wanted to play soccer. I just don't know if he would have been in the position he's in now, because after he made that decision, that's all he did. I mean, he did still play some soccer, but he was going to camps and Kohl’s camps and learning and spending time out on the field.”
In Blake’s junior year at Liberty North, Lierman knew the team had another Division I kicker on the roster. He made 10-of-15 field goals and 53-of-53 points, but in the sixth game of the season versus Lee’s Summit North, he proved he wasn’t the same scrawny player he was when Lierman met him.
“He had a field goal late in the game against Lee’s Summit North that was a 53-yarder or something like that and it was in a pressure situation,” Lierman said. “It was a tight ball game, and the confidence that he walked out and kicked that ball in, it was just like I looked at our special teams coordinator and I'm like, ‘That kid's special.’ He's just different, and you just kind of saw his confidence grow his junior year.”
That wasn’t the only telling sign that Blake was going to be special. He learned how to bounce back from missing kicks. During that same season, Craig missed several kicks that he should've made, and the Liberty coaches had to talk to him and settle him down to let him know those things happen, but he's got to have a next-kick mentality.
“He hit that stretch where he struggled for a bit, and we just kind of talked through that,” Lierman said. “I don't know if that's helped him at all or not at the time, it did, but we just kind of talked about that. The next kick is the most important kick, and you can't do anything about it. … So, just trust in what you can do and how you can do it, and believe in yourself. That’s the biggest thing.”
That mindset caught the attention of the Missouri coaching staff. He came to Columbia for a kicking camp the team hosted and it got to the point where Blake and other campers were having a kicking contest from well beyond 50 yards.
When Craig missed an attempt he pleaded with the coaches for another chance while the other participants who missed needed a moment to gather themselves.
“I watched him live. His confidence in his abilities to make it — he came here and worked out during our kicking camp and won competitions,” Drinkwitz said. “Ultimately, it’s not just about the talent, it’s about the mentality.”
Craig would get an offer from Missouri, the school he grew up loving, the summer entering his senior season, when he’d connect on 17-of-24 field goals (long of 55 yards) and make 50-of-52 PATs. When he joined Mizzou in the fall of 2023, that’s when Drinkwitz knew he really had Mevis’ replacement.
“Last year in fall camp. When Harrison wasn't kicking as well as we wanted him to, and so I sent Blake in there with the ones just to send a message that there are no secured positions,” Drinkwitz said leading into the Week 2 game versus Buffalo.
So far, Blake has answered the challenge of being the heir apparent to the program's all-time scoring leader. He’s made all 12 PATs and is 8-of-10 on field goals. However, he’s already faced some adversity.
He was 3-of-3 on field goals in Week 1 versus Murray State before he went 1-of-3 in Week 2 versus Buffalo with his lone make being from 51 yards and his misses coming from 49 and 52 yards. Again, that's where that next kick mentality set in.
"The approach is the exact same, and I think that's my mentality," Blake said. "Next kick, make or miss. So, the approach is the exact same, and I try to just keep a clear mind and know, that's going to happen. you're going to have to be able to move on and go to the next kick."
Blake kept the same approach entering Week 3, and that next kick mentality led to him making all four of his field goal attempts from 38 (twice), 56 and 31 yards, respectively en route to being named the SEC Special Teams Player of the Week.
“He’s always been confident in himself and I think the players and coaches demonstrate confidence in him, too,” Drinkwitz said. Like the question last week, ‘Were we concerned about him because he missed a couple of longer field goals?’ The answer was no. We knew he would be able to make it when we needed (it.)”
In particular, Craig’s 56-yarder to give the team a 17-14 lead was what changed the tide of the game and swung the momentum in the Tigers' favor.
“That was crazy. He just ran out there and booted it,” Missouri quarterback Brady Cook said. “He drilled it, like it hit midway on the net. There was never really a doubt it looked like in his eyes. … We have a ton of confidence in Blake and that’s nice to know on two-minute drives the kick line moves back a little bit. So, that helps out the offense.”
From soccer to learning how to play football to replacing a future Power 4 kicker to replacing a school’s all-time leading scorer, Blake has shown time and again he can do the job. For as much as he loves and appreciates Mevis, he's not worried about replacing the all-time leading scorer. He's worried about running his own race, and the race continues on Saturday, as No. 7 Missouri hosts Vanderbilt in the SEC opener for both teams
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