9/12/2019 football Edit

Huskers exploring all options to bolster kicker depth

Robin Washut • InsideNebraska

Senior Writer

Robin has been with HuskerOnline since July of 2008, focusing on Nebraska football team coverage as well as being the No. 1 Husker men's basketball team and recruiting writer.

Just when it looked like Nebraska’s kicker situation couldn’t get much worse, head coach Scott Frost and his staff had another worry added their plate this week.

Starting placekicker Barret Pickering has missed the first two games of the season with an undisclosed injury, and he was removed from the depth chart entirely for this week’s game vs. Northern Illinois.

Backup kicker Dylan Jorgensen got the start in the opener, but after handling the first two kickoffs at Colorado the freshman walk-on was removed from the game and hasn’t practiced all week with an apparent injury.

On top of all that, Frost announced on Thursday that NU’s emergency kicker – senior punter Isaac Armstrong – had been “banged up a little” this week.

With starter Barret Pickering still out with an injury, Nebraska has had to get creative with its kicker situation. (Nate Clouse)

In order to make sure they just had enough bodies on the field at kicker, Frost confirmed that the Huskers reached out to the UNL men’s soccer club to see if any of its players had any past placekicking experience.

A handful of players worked out for the staff this week, and Frost said one of them has a chance at joining the roster.

“We called the club soccer team to see if they had any kids that had done it before,” Frost said. “Going into last week we had both of our kickers with minor injuries and we didn’t know who was going to be able to kick. Isaac was even banged up a little.

“Somebody had told me who had been here that (former NU kicker) Alex Henery actually came off the club soccer team, so we had some kids come and tryout for us, and we’re going to give at least one of them a shot to at least work on it and see what he can give us. If nothing else maybe some kickoffs through the end zone.”

Frost declined to name the potential new kicker addition, only saying: “We’re working through that right now.”

But HuskerOnline was able to confirm this week that the player is Trevor Yanovich, a junior education major who was a former Omaha Gross kicker and two-time All-State soccer player.

Yanovich’s father, Rick Yanovich, told HOL that his son had been with the team the last few days and was taking the necessary steps to officially join the roster.