LOS ANGELES — A 14-year-old, Eddie Czaplicki, faced an uphill battle.
Standing on a muddy middle school football field in Charlotte, North Carolina, Czaplicki looked up the slope of a hill to the endzone line and his target practice for the day.
A miscalculation by builders made the field 42 yards wide — about 11 short what it should have been — and with an upward slope. This unorthodox field is where the young Czaplicki began a punting journey that would lead him to become college football’s most outstanding punter of 2024.
It was somewhat of an uphill battle, though.
“It’s not the best field at all. It's mud 360 days out of the year,” Dan Orner, Czaplicki’s trainer, said.
The two began their first session back in 2018 with specialty punts, focused on pinning the ball inside the 20- and 10-yard line. With mud stuck in his cleats and kicking uphill, Czaplicki’s attention to detail heightened.
“If I can perform well when everything is not optimal, it will toughen my mindset,” Czaplicki said.
Seven years later and 3,000 miles away, Czaplicki, now a punter for the USC Trojans, faced heightened stakes against UCLA on Nov. 23.
The screams of 59,000 blue-and-gold fans and a rain drizzle clouded the Rose Bowl on a cold November night. In a close-knit rivalry game, the Trojans needed Czaplicki to deliver another one of his pinpoint punts to trap the Bruins in their territory.
The senior punter, with his cleats full of mud, didn’t hesitate, banking on his years of repetition. Entering a zen state of mind, Czaplicki hit the ball with enough backspin to pin UCLA at the one-yard line. It was not a stroke of luck; more than one in five of Czaplicki’s regular season punts landed inside the 10-yard line.
Czaplicki and the Trojans turned their good fortune into their sixth win and eligibility for a bowl game. For the punter, then a semi-finalist for the Ray Guy Award, it only strengthened his case.
It was enough for the council. Three weeks later, Czaplicki became USC’s first-ever Ray Guy winner.
Photo / Eddie.Czaplicki on Instagram
“There's been so many amazing players that have won this in the past, and to have my name be up there with them, it means a lot,” Czaplicki said in an interview.
During the regular season, Czaplicki’s combination of accuracy and a refined kicking technique led him to a nation’s-best 45.7 net yards — the average distance his punts travel, minus opponents' return yards.
"I don’t know how you can have a better year…the punt unit as a whole has been an elite unit," USC coach Lincoln Riley said.
When USC's offense stalled, No. 16 eased the pressure. Of 43 punts, 25 of his kicks landed inside the opponent's 20-yard line with only one touchback.
“It has affected some of our decision-making because it has been such a consistent weapon," Riley said.
While 3,000 miles separate, two of Czaplicki's football coaches, Providence high school football coach Weslee Ward and Lincoln Riley, agree that his pinpoint accuracy is a weapon.
In Czaplicki's high school days, Ward said it was not a worry if the offense struggled to move.
"We're going to punt it back to the other 20 or to the 15 [yard line], and then they're gonna have to go the full length of the field," Ward said. "That makes it really hard on people."
After learning he had won the Ray Guy award, Czaplicki’s first call was to his mother, one of his biggest inspirations. Originally from Ukraine, his mother immigrated to America to create a better life for her two children.
“The sacrifices she made coming into America to try to give me a better life … that motivates me so much,” Czaplicki said.
Czaplicki's motivation brewed a competitive spirit in every walk of his life.
Before punting, Czaplicki used his strong leg on the soccer field. He was the team's go-to player on all corners and free-kick situations.
He had so much competitive juice inside of him that, as an adolescent, he didn’t know how to control it, Czaplicki said. Red cards were not uncommon in his soccer days.
“[Eddie] was kind of the enforcer on the soccer field,” Orner recalled from a family friend whose kid played against Czaplicki in middle school.
Learning to harness his overly competitive younger self was a sign of maturity for Czaplicki, he said. Getting older, he channeled his energy in the gym and at training.
“There was never downtime where he just wasn't trying to do something to improve himself,” Ward, said. “Whether that was stretching, mobility stuff, or working kicking drills.”
As a punter, Czaplicki separated himself in the weight room. He attacked every session with tenacity, trying to bust what he called a stigma around punters and kickers. Czaplicki credits former Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee’s mantra For The Brand for uplifting punters as being overall athletes.
PHOTO / DAN ORNER - DAN ORNER KICKING AND PUNTING
A young Eddie Czaplicki with his trainer Dan Orner at a training session in Charlotte, NC.
Orner says he often hears the specialist position players described as weird or unathletic, something he considers unfortunate. Orner has dedicated the past 20 years to train countless collegiate and NFL punters, including two Ray Guy award winners: Eddie Czaplicki (2024) and Georgia’s Drew Butler (2009).
Orner suggested to a then-freshman Czaplicki, that he find the best weightlifter to mentor him at his high school.
“If I wanted to be good at this, I had to transform my body,” Czaplicki, who is 6’1 and 207 lbs, said.
Building up fast-twitch muscles as a punter is essential for the position. In order to move with the most power, Orner said the trick is all in the player's body control to make every kick look smooth.
“I'm trying to get my kickers and punters to almost be still life,” Orner said. “The perfect swing is the illusion that it's smooth.”
The recipe for that is power cleans, focusing on lower body power generation.
“Kicking and punting are basically doing a hang clean or a power clean just on one leg,” Orner said. “It's a hinging motion.”
As a high schooler, Czaplicki challenged anybody in the weight room.
“A lot of my linebackers, my running backs and my stronger kids … usually power clean 225 [lbs] or more,” Ward said. “And Eddie was right there, power cleaning with [them].”
Ward recalled that by the time Czaplicki left Providence High School, he had been pushing 275 lbs.
2021 K/P @EddieCzaplicki with an easy 275 today. #ONTHE🚌 pic.twitter.com/bjGHwM6jOd
— 🅿️rovidence Football (@Prov_Football) March 5, 2020
“The kids that make it are used to power cleaning, hang cleaning and back squatting when they get to college,” Orner said.
But from a young age, Czaplicki’s curiosity drove his journey to the Ray Guy. Early into their time together, Orner saw something different in a 14-year-old Czaplicki and allowed him to sit in on college and NFL training sessions.
Czaplicki would sit for hours, eating his dad’s homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, visualizing himself in their shoes one day. He mirrored the NFL punter's movements on the sideline and practiced his hand drops.
“The biggest thing was just seeing how they worked and the relentless work ethic they have because when they're at that level, they are doing it to feed their families,” Czaplicki said.
And at free moments between drills, Czaplicki would walk down the field with Atlanta Falcons punter Bradly Pinion, asking about technique and approach.
“[Czaplicki] was trying to immerse himself and basically just started visualizing himself as becoming a great college kicker and punter,” Orner said. “Surround yourself with enough people that are super successful on and off the field and that breeds itself.”
To this day, Czaplicki still asks who Orner is training, looking to get any type of work when he is back home in Charlotte. Orner said Czaplicki's mindset is among the same of NBA greats LeBron James and Kobe Byrant.
“Passion is a skill set, and he's got it,” Orner said.
Czaplicki's time in USC cardinal and gold is over, yet he plans to continue forging his path at the next level in the National Foobtall League.