Yup, we're talking kickers and punters to start preseason position previews.

We're about a month from camp and frankly Boston Lax and the high school lax playoffs have consumed most of my time. I feel like I've been slacking content wise here minus women's lax, so I figured I'd start with something easy this week before another lax game tonight. Thinking I'll go defense the next few weeks then work through the rest until we hit the QB's closer to the start of training camp.

There's actually some interesting discussions to have with the BC special teams unit this season. It feels like as a whole it's just sort of been 'meh' the last few years. Personally, the last time I remember the unit being interesting was the walk on kicker winning the job out of the stands (or the band?) Again, not a 'true' BC guy so the story is a little hazy to me. I think it was in the like 2001-2002. I'm sure someone on here will help me out.

Anyway, I think there's a chance the third phase of the game plays a much bigger role this season.

Kickers

With Connor Lytton now gone, it's Leominster native and former Middlesex standout Liam Connor who appears to be the lead guy when it comes to field goals and PAT attempts. Connor came on last year and basically just stole the job from Lytton, who was seemingly the next new weapon for BC after his freshman year, although Lytton had a brutal sophomore slump in 2023 and didn't do himself any favors. During spring ball, we barely saw the kickers. Like, I mean if you were at practice you could have easily forgotten they were even there. Aside from pre-practice routines and the occasional competitive kicks in team drills, they were usually on the outside field or inside Alumni. When we did see them, Luca Lombardo (Westport, CT) did have a pretty good leg it seemed, but again, it's hard to tell without seeing more competitive, pressure situations. I think ultimately Lombardo handles KO's and Connor does the rest.

Punters

With three (technically) listed on the roster, this feels like much more of a competition. Usually in spring ball when we saw the punters in action Bill O'Brien had them kicking out of their own end zone in team periods. Right now, Sam Stone is listed as a kicker/punter, but it's hard to imagine he'll do much kicking, so it feels like it's punter job or bust for him. Sam Candotti has obviously been extremely consistent for the Eagles and arguably the team's best special teamer for like two years now. I believe it's his job until it isn't, but Ivan Zivenko (Miami/La Salle) did have a big leg at times. Interesting to see how it all shakes out in camp.

Returners

So, we never actually saw any returns in camp, it was always walkthrough-ish speed and drills at the start of practice where a handful of guys would work on catching balls high from a jugs machine. But, after a year of disappointment with the Zay Flowers experiment and then the Ryan O'Keefe era that never began, BC still lacks that playmaker that can break one. Treshaun Ward and Jayden McGowan - both transfers - should be the first two up. Also, don't forget the new NFL kickoff rules are changing, so who knows? Maybe college teams start trying to get guys prepared for it a bit and get more creative in the return game. In my opinion, I think McGowan ends up being the main guy in that role.