Anders Carlson smiled big at the thought of heading into the Tigers’ game with the Akron Zips this Saturday.
Between his preparedness to his teammates’ abilities in practice, all the way to goals and expectations for the season after a successful fall camp, Carlson has a lot on his mind. However, his main focus rings the same as his team's and that is consistency.
The senior kicker is heading into his fourth year as a starter and his fifth year on the team, following a redshirted season in 2017. He comes off the 2020 season with a 90.91% field goal success rate and a chance to put up even better numbers, potentially competing for some postseason awards.
“We’re extremely excited to be playing, but more importantly, we’re extremely excited to be playing in a packed out stadium,” Carlson said. “We loved playing football last year and we do it to play football, but there’s nothing like having the environment, the fans. Having your family there is really important, too. I think all the guys are pumped. We’re ready to go.”
A recent video highlighted Auburn's overall focus on consistency, with visuals of special teams’ snaps and the placement of both the ball and its laces. The message was to the team as a whole, but Carlson emphasized the importance of this consistency as he does his job each week.
“I’m always trying to stretch my range,” Carlson said. “We’ve backed it up a decent bit in practice recently. I think we’ve been back to 55 [yards] a couple of times here recently, but that’s something I like to work on my own as well, seeing if I can test my boundaries, get up to 60 sometimes if there’s a little wind behind me.”
His career-long for a field goal is a 53-yard kick in 2018, with a close second 52-yards in the 2019 season. Both kicks took place in Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium, which is important to Carlson. A field is a field for most other players, but those opportunities provided the specialists with a chance to practice in the actual conditions they kick in each Saturday.
“More than anything, I just like kicking in the stadium," Carlson said." It gives you a different visual. I know only half of our games are in there, but I love kicking and seeing visuals that I’ll have on game day. Sometimes here at practice, it can get a little repetitive, so we’ll try to skip over to the stadium and get those visuals as much as we can.”
Auburn’s season opens this Saturday in a 6 p.m. CST matchup with Akron. The game is being touted as a return to normalcy, bringing back a socially distanced Tiger Walk, the pregame eagle flight, as well as on-field band performances and full stadium capacity.
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Callie Stanford is from Springville, Alabama and is currently a sophomore at Auburn. She has been with The Plainsman since January 2021.
Twitter: @Stanford1Callie
