'Prodigy' Will Reichard has been on NFL path since youth

Vikings new kicker attended Kohl's Professional Camps from a young age, which helped him prepare for the biggest stages

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By Matthew Coller

Normally when kids under high school age email Jamie Kohl about coming to his kicking camps, he is hesitant to say yes. Most kickers that age are lacking the strength and coordination to kick alongside juniors and seniors.

When Will Reichard’s father emailed Kohl about his junior high-aged son coming to a camp, Kohl feared that it would be another painful experience with a kid in over his head.

Not this kid.

“Will is truly one of the few prodigies,” Kohl said over the phone.

Despite weighing around 100 pounds, Reichard displayed coordination that Kohl has rarely seen from someone his age. By ninth grade, Reichard hit a field goal over 50 yards at Kohl’s camp in Auburn and nearly beat out some of the top juniors and seniors in the country.

“He was just unflappable,” Kohl said. “Laser focused. Great attention to detail and being able to listen and take coaching and compete. That was impressive to me.”

At the 2018 Kohl’s National Scholarship Camp, Reichard scored the highest mark out of 186 kickers.

The ironic thing about Reichard’s upbringing in football was that he wasn’t the top kicker at his own high school until his senior year. Hoover High in Alabama had another kicker named Barret Pickering, who ended up getting a scholarship to play for Nebraska. That meant Reichard had to make his name and do a lot of his development in camps.

When the opportunity finally came at Hoover High, he made 27-of-29 career field goal attempts and was perfect on extra points, making all 109 attempts, kicking himself onto Nick Saban’s roster at Alabama.

The rest is history from there. Legendary history at ‘Bama, in fact. He put together a perfect season with field goals and extra points on the national champion squad in 2020 and finished his career scoring more points than any college player. His parting kicks were as memorable as any kicker in college football history, nailing two 50-plus yarders against Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

Funny, before Reichard, it was thought that kickers couldn’t thrive in the Alabama environment. Whether it was coach Saban’s hard-nosed nature or simply the pressure of playing at the top program against the top competition in hostile environments, previous kickers rarely thrived there.

“You haven’t heard anything about that the last five years,” Kohl said, laughing.

When the Vikings scouted Reichard, they heavily weighed how he dealt with the circumstances. Kohl, who got to know his family over the years and saw Reichard deal with some tough times growing up including the passing of his father, never doubted his unique ability to remain focused.

“Will was the safest pick in this draft. I’ve told everybody that,” Kohl said. “He’s proven in on the big stage in a lot of situations.”

Reichard’s preparedness for the NFL is largely about his natural gifts but he is also a product of a new age of specialization where kids have resources to hone their craft from early ages like never before.

Back in the early 2000s, Jamie, his father and brother started Kohl’s Professional Camps as a summer job. Jamie had been an All-State kicker in Wisconsin and four-year starter for Iowa State. He kicked in three NFL preseason games with Seattle and then became a teacher.

At first they sent out fliers in the mail. To show you how much things have changed: The thing that attracted kids to their camps at first was that they had a camcorder. They had the capability to video tape the young kickers and break down their techniques on film.

By Year 8, Kohl built relationships with ESPN, Under Armor and several NFL players, including former Colt Pat McAfee and current Jet Thomas Morstead.

“Those guys set the foundation and it became word-of-mouth and we kept growing it,” Kohl said.

Grow they did. Out of the 96 kickers, punters and long snappers on NFL rosters, Kohl has worked with 75 of them. There are events almost daily from the end of May until mid-August, Kohl has a full-time staff and all sorts of NFL contributors to his camps.

“It’s been hard work to build a reputation as a place where the top kids could come and show off their talent,” Kohl said. “The other thing is trying to be honest with people. We are not for everybody. Some people really enjoy being told how great they are and how much talent they have and we are more on the other side of — you are good but you have to work on this, this and this.”

Jamie Kohl and his family started kicking camps in the early 2000s and have grown them to be the gold standard. Photo courtesy Kohlskicking.com

After the Chicago Bears’ double-doink loss in the 2018 playoffs, Kohl was hired as a full-time kicking consultant for the Bears. In 2020, kicker Cario Santos broke the franchise record for field goal percentage and had the third longest streak of made field goals in history. He worked with the Panthers in 2022 where kicker Eddy Pineiro led the league with a field goal percentage of 94.3% for kickers with at least 25 attempts.

“The thing I took away from that is talent is one thing — like a pitcher who can throw 100 mph — how much emphasis and weight do you put on that versus the ability to call on a certain pitch or certain type of kick and ball striking and rotation,” Kohl said. “Those things over the long term I think will keep you in the league longer than just leg talent alone.”

He believes Reichard has those different types of “pitches” with different strikes for different situations. But his biggest asset is that he can execute them in any spot in the game.

“He has very good leg talent and very good command of his body,” Kohl said. “I’m promising you in the biggest situations his heart rate is as low as anybody we have been around.”

When it comes to a gifted prospect like Reichard, Kohl said that he doesn’t try to overhaul the player’s style, rather assess him as a unique athlete and tries to add one or two coaching points to focus on. He compares it to putting seasoning on a meal, not trying to cook the entire thing.

These are the types of opportunities that were not available to players when the last generations of kickers were coming up. It allows Reichard to be more ready for the NFL than players in the past have ever been.

“You look at these new age kickers now, they are getting much better,” special teams coordinator Matt Daniels said. “Their legs are getting stronger, accuracy is improving, it’s somewhat getting easier to evaluate them because they are sharper in terms of their techniques, fundamentals and ball striking. It’s a good time to be a kicker.”

Kohl still cautions against setting the bar crazy high for Reichard in Year 1. Even having played under tough circumstances in the past, nothing compares to the NFL game in terms of degree of difficulty.

“There is still a learning curve with rookie kickers. I hope that Vikings fans and everybody else understands that,” Kohl said. “A lot of it is how you manage situational success. Those are key indicators of who will have a long NFL career and who won’t.”

Part of the learning process will be making sure that the procedure is just right. Daniels is urging his young kicker to give feedback to his holder and snapper. That’s the level of detail required to carry over success from college to the NFL.

“I talked with Will and [John Parker Romo] about how critical they have to be when it comes to the operation,” Daniels said. “We want every snap to be perfect. We want every hold to be perfect. If it’s off by an inch, tell them. If the tilt of the ball isn’t how you want it, tell them. If the kicker is confident in the operation, everything else is going to be seamless for them.”

While Kohl’s camps and his mentorship have helped Reichard along the way, he admits that a player like Reichard only comes along every so often.

“The things that make Will special, some of it I can’t teach,” Kohl said. “I can’t teach a person when everything is on the line to focus to a greater degree. Most people in those situations are hoping to survive…. some of that stuff is just a gift.”

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