Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa football punter Tory Taylor joins the show to discuss his journey to the Hawkeyes

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

We are honored to be joined by current Iowa Hawkeye punter Tory Taylor as he discusses his journey to Iowa City and his journey to becoming one of the best punters in the nation.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Made InGo to MadeInCookware.com/LockedON, and use promo code LockedON for 15% offyour first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to a Monday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. And today's awesome episode with Iowa punter, Tori Taylor, is brought to you by rockauto.com. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit rockauto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.

And again, on today's show, we are joined by punter, Tori Taylor. Before we get into that, though, if you are concerned about the recruiting class 2022, check out our podcast yesterday. We give you reasons why you shouldn't be concerned and what would make this class truly shine and sparkle and also tell you about why this class is already good, as is, or at least the people we have in the class are phenomenal athletes and we are very excited to have them join the Iowa football program. But again, that being all said, let's hop into our interview with Torrey Taylor right now.

All right, y'all. I'm honored to be joined here by Iowa's punter, first team All-Big Ten punter, Torrey Taylor. Torrey, man, it is a pleasure. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks very much for having me on. I'm looking forward to chatting and telling you all about my journey and things like that. But yeah, thanks again for having me on. Absolutely, man. I feel like we should start calling this kind of like the segue to Australian punters, man. I've had Michael on twice. You've had, you've been on, I've never had one position on more times than you guys. So this is,

Oh really? There you go. It's good to give the specialist some love. Cause as you probably know, we don't get much. So now again, thanks for having me on. Yeah, man. Well, I got, actually, let's just kick it off with that because I feel like Iowa out of all schools probably loves their specialist more than any other school have you realized that have you like has that come to terms with you at all yeah I mean obviously Michael will sleep as I refer to him kind of told me a bit about and I knew a specialist I've always got quite a bit of tension here, obviously with Keith being here as well,

obviously being the all American and good kicker himself. Yeah. It's good to see the specialist getting some love, which is nice as we deserve. Yeah, absolutely, man. I will,

I will love some good punting, man. I don't know a single school that's like, Oh my gosh, we just put the ball 45 yards and get as pumped up as Iowa does. I know. I love it. Like I said, it's always a good day when specialists are getting some love. Absolutely. And you actually, so you know, you come from Australia, you have, it seems like a connection or at least a bond with a lot of Australian punters in here.

What is that like? Do you, are you all supporting each other? Are you all talking to each other regularly? What is that like for you? Yeah. there's probably oh 90 to 100 105 guys over here at the moment um with a lot of guys playing div one div two um juco football as well so yeah everyone's pretty close I obviously have um a few guys that I try and lean on um for support or just um it's always good to chat to them and yeah I'm close with a lot of guys over here um but it's funny probably like the the better moments um of last year it was obviously great great to play and experience college football but probably my better memories were actually seeing the guys after the game that I'd um train with back home was it was actually quite special I can only imagine that um and what was that like, you know, coming from Australia to Iowa? Have you ever been to Iowa before?

No, no. So I think I was planning on coming here in April last year, but then obviously COVID hit around that time. And then, yeah, that kind of pushed everything back. And then, yeah, I got here late August last year. So it all happened pretty quickly. Yeah I want to get into what the sales pitch is from from Coach Woods to you but before we get into that it seems like your entry into Pro Kick was relatively casual right I mean you obviously

been playing Australian rules football for your whole life and when I did some research it looked like and please correct me if I'm wrong you're just like man I have a big leg and some people told me to do this so let's let's go check this thing out is that really how casual it was for you to get into pro kick or is there something else to it no that that's pretty much it i mean um when i was playing australian football i wasn't playing it um at a special um level or anything like that but i'd always kind of thought that i was a relatively big kick and um dudes kind of made like small little jokes here they're like oh you should give punny and go and I never really thought um

much of it and then I saw that a guy I went to um school with Xavier Saboch he was the punter at App State and I kind of thought oh well like this might be all right and then I got in contact with the guys at Pro Kick and um went down for for an assessment as all guys do and they kind of said oh like look if you put in the time and the work you've certainly got what it takes and then yeah I kind of ummed and aahed for a while and then it really just came down to the fact I was like well what have I got to lose it's such a good opportunity I don't want to look um look back in 20 years time go oh damn I should have done that so yeah it all um to answer your question yeah it was all really just the one of those things where I was like oh well I'll give it a go if it works out it works out and if it doesn't at least I can say I've given it a crack absolutely man and what was

that sales pitch for coach was he came down there obviously so how did he sell you on a going to the united states and b going to iowa i'm from iowa i love the state but uh i gotta be honest it's sometimes hard to sell to people who are not familiar with iowa yeah i think i mean he didn't really have to sell much because i knew i was such a a big colored football program but i think like the biggest thing for me was um coach Woods was like one of the nicest guys I know and um he just almost really made um me feel as if like I was like going into like the Iowa football family and I'm a big family person um so that was kind of probably the biggest thing for me was and me and coach Wood just got along like a house on fire so

he really he really didn't have um didn't really have to pitch much to me because i was already pretty set on it to be honest i was really just like grateful to um get the opportunity and get the offer um but i kind of didn't realize like how i guess big and like serious it was until i got here because i mean we're trying obviously everyone talks about it but you never really know what it's like until you're here and you're in the moment but yeah coach Woods didn't really have to pitch much because I already knew I was a big time program I mean it's big 10 they've been however many number of wins over the last 20 years under coach Ferens and countless amount of bowl games there really really wasn't much to it, to be honest.

It was a pretty easy decision. Man, it seems like it was pretty seamless all around. And then you jump into Big Ten play, and all of a sudden you're just lighting the world on fire. And, you know, your very first Big Ten game, and you're crushing it. So for you, what was that welcome to the Big Ten moment or welcome to college football moment where you're like,

holy crap, I'm doing this? I mean, probably obviously Purdue being my first game it's funny i kind of walked out um got off the bus and walked out and walked up this little hill and you can um kind of it's like an open look at the stadium i was like oh wow um these stadiums are a lot bigger than what they look like on tv even though i'd seen kinnick and things like that. But I think probably the biggest moment for me was probably the Minnesota game for me just because it was cold. It was a little windy.

It was pretty tough conditions and there was just a couple of tricky punts that I kind of executed and that kind of made me think that, like, wow, yeah, I can do this. And it kind of meant a lot because all the guys on the team were really getting around me and that was almost like, yeah, welcome to Big Ten football. But, yeah, Purdue was probably, I was just like, wow, like, this is pretty surreal. But at the same time, like, I've been kicking a football

for 15, 20 years it really wasn't anything new it's just the fact that these big dudes and in shoulder pads and at home were running at me trying to get me that's fair um all right y'all we're gonna take a quick break and get back to you in just a few moments i do want to tell you about this episode being brought to you by rockauto.com with the ever-increasing numbers of makes and models, it is now impossible for our local chain auto parts stores to stock all the parts you need. Why endure often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning and wait while the person behind the counter orders the parts on their computer,

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in their How Did You Hear About Us box so they know we sent you. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit rockauto.com. At any point were you nervous or do you feel like the fact that you, and you've talked about this in some press conferences,

you almost weren't even aware of some of the, the gravity of certain situations. Did that help you reduce the nerves or do you feel like that made you more nervous going into some of those situations? I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get nervous. But like I said, I mean, I've been king of football for 50, 20, 15, 20 years. And I just tried to simplify it as much as I can. Like for said, I mean, I've been kicking a football for 15, 20 years and I just tried to simplify it as much as I can.

Like for me, it's the most complicated game I've ever experienced or watched or even thought about. So I just tried to simplify it as much as I could. And at the end of the day, I was really just catching the football and kicking it, which like I said, I'd been doing for my whole life up until the day. But I was a little bit nervous just because of the repercussions, I guess, of a bad punt.

And you're always thinking about the negative. That's only human. But I'm also a big believer in the fact that I'm going to have to do it eventually. So what's the point in worrying about it? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think that's kind of something that I realized as the season went on. I was like, okay, look, I'm actually semi-okay at this.

And things just started to get easier and easier. Semi-okay is a very, very humble way of saying how well you performed last year uh you had a ray guy award type of season uh you're all big 10 conference punter uh saying you're semi okay is i love that i love that humility but uh come on man we all thought that was a pretty amazing season uh i mean yeah i don't know i don't really the whole like individual um accolades i know um to me don't really like really matter that much because at the end of the day it's a team sport um and usually that stuff usually takes care of itself but i'm kind of more so just like all about making my teammates proud and my family proud and all the coaches that have invested a lot of time and into me and yeah I'm just

grateful to be here so all the all those individual stuff it doesn't really matter to me and saying that after the season it was kind of good to look back and reflect on a couple of things and I was almost as if like yeah okay um what I'm doing isn't too bad and it's almost make makes all those hard times worth it yeah absolutely and you talk about reflecting back let's reflect back for just one more moment here what was your favorite moment of the entire season or favorite moment of the entire season um or favorite punt either one i'd say probably i think it was my um punt in the third quarter against um minnesota because obviously windy and cold and um we kind of had a little bit of a lead

and i kind of just went out and thought well if, if I can hit a punt inside the 15, I'll be pretty happy because I know it'll set up my team going forward. And then I managed to kick the ball in, I think, out of bounds at the four or five. So that was probably one of the better moments for me. But like I said before, the best moments were seeing my friends after the game,

like the guys that I'd train with um back home and it's obviously difficult being over here um by yourself but to see those other guys um was was awesome as well absolutely man and again you talk about reflecting back now you're looking forward what are some I know you've talked about this before but what are some of the big things you're working on this summer uh going into this upcoming season uh probably just the traditional spiral punt um has been my biggest focus uh because I know obviously to progress um career wise um the guys in the NFL love the spiral punt there's not much um rugby that really goes on so um that's kind of been my my biggest focus um i think last year as well um with the with the conditions um some people don't really

realize like it i mean you do but some people don't realize like the ball actually doesn't travel as far in the cold you know what i mean so yeah i'm kind of i'm kind of looking forward to playing some nicer weather in the in the earlier parts of what i mean so yeah i'm kind of looking forward to playing some nice weather in the in the earlier parts of the season but yeah my biggest focus has been the traditional spiral punt just like i said to kind of progress um you need to be able to execute those sort of punts definitely when you look at your stats even uh you started off 44.2 point or 44.2 yards per kick 49 45 44 44 40, 42, 42, as you get into December, man.

And that's, I think, one of the cool things about Iowa is you get the opportunity to kick in, to be honest, some crappy weather, some cold weather, some weather that's going to place you in situations that maybe don't make you most comfortable, but definitely prepare you better for the long term. We do have a lot of people on here. So have you ever met Matt Vandenberg, former Iowa wide receiver?

Oh, no, I have not. No. Okay. Definitely. If you ever get a chance, definitely talk to him. He's in the Iowa city area, but he joins the show every Monday after a game to talk through some recap and analysis with me. And one of the things we realized there's a lot of people on this show or that listen to the show who don't know some of the finer points, which is, which is fair and understandable. Can you walk me through a spiral punt and what are the nuances behind it? Uh, what is, you know, what makes it more difficult maybe than doing

the rugby punt and also what makes it more of a value add to your arsenal? Well, I think with the spiral punt, it, it stays in the air for longer. And when the ball's spiralling a certain way, it almost pierces through the wind and it goes further. But it's kind of funny. A lot of guys here, like the Australians, we've been doing the rugby punt forever, whereas the hardest thing for us is learning how to spiral, where it's almost reverse for guys over here.

They've been growing up kicking a spiral where it's almost um reverse for guys over here um they've been growing up um kicking a spiral and um the rugby side of things is the hardest part for them yeah in terms of the spiral punt it stays in the air for longer um which obviously means there's more time for my guys to get down there um and it obviously goes further because it's almost just piercing through the air if that makes sense yeah no that that does um and you talk about giving your guys time to get down there terry roberts was a phenomenal gunner for you guys last year how close are you with terry man yeah i'm really close and honestly like i've said this before probably not so much in the public but i i have um said it to terry i mean the easy like it's easy for me to go out there and

and punt the ball because like I said I've been doing it for 15 20 years but the hardest thing is Terry's he's trying to get past four or five dudes in his way um and he yeah he's screaming down there um trying to cover my punt so really it was um I owe a lot of credit to Terry because he turned some of my not-so-good punts into okay ones. So yeah, I was really lucky. And my housemate, Ivory Kelly-Martin as well, and guys like Henry Marques as well. Yeah, they were really helpful. So yeah, I owe a lot of credit to them. All right, y'all.

One more break before we get to our third and final segment, talking to Torrey Taylor. Just a reminder that we actually are going to be breaking this up into two interviews because Torrey Taylor was such a good dude to talk to. We talked for about 40 minutes. So our second part of this interview is coming tomorrow, actually, on Wednesday. So make sure to check that out as well if you want to listen to more from our Iowa punter, Torrey Taylor.

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a free account and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit when you use the promo code LOCKEDON. That's betonline.ag, your online sportsbook experts. Yeah, man. I mean, a couple of those guys, I mean, if they fumble the ball and we don't have a guy down there, there's not much that's going to happen. We just pick it up and run with it. Yeah. And I mean, Terry got a couple of turnovers for himself as well. So yeah i'm i'm really lucky that that those guys are on my side absolutely man no that's like i said special teams is uh no one can appreciate special teams more than an iowa fan man yeah so yeah so going into this upcoming season i want

to talk about that a little bit but the big thing this off season was name image likeness so obviously i had reached out to you because like i would love to have you promote the show i think that'd be really cool i'm big fan of obviously your punting game and i'm again talked to michael a couple times and he's a good dude so uh try to follow punting as close as i can no i appreciate it but you can't do that so can you maybe walk me through if you're allowed to uh what is nil for international players so i actually didn't even really know this until last week because I didn't really – I wasn't really worrying about the whole name, image, and likeness because at the end of the day,

I said, like, yeah, it's a good opportunity for people to make a little bit of money. But the way I see it is if you're good enough, you'll make the money eventually. So I didn't really buy into it much or anything like that. But yeah, unfortunately, as part of my visa obligations, I'm not allowed to partake in the whole NIL stuff. But to be completely honest, it doesn't, like, I don't really care.

Do you know what I mean? It doesn't really bother me. But yeah, like like i'm really happy to um to help guys out um wherever they need it um i don't yeah because like i said if you're really good enough you'll make the money eventually yeah man and uh you you kind of alluded to something that i wanted to ask you about is the goal to get to the nfl uh yeah absolutely um but i know at the end of the day, NFL is not forever and it's not going to define me whether I make it or not

because, like I said, I just really enjoy the experience here and I've met so many great people. And the Iowa football networking I know will only benefit me in the future. So the NFL is obviously the goal. But like for now, I'm really just focusing on what I can do today. Yeah, man. The Hawkeye football family is amazing.

I don't know if you saw the fundraiser recently for a former Hawkeye. Yeah, I did. Yeah. That kind of opened my eyes. I was like, yeah. And that's kind of what I alerted to at the start was just like the whole family atmosphere here. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great place to be and I'm really lucky.

Yeah, man. And what are you, I mean, obviously we're going to be seeing Kinnick packed. Are you, A, are you excited for that? I'm assuming the answer is yes, but have you ran into any fans on the streets? Are there Iowa people that have gone up to you and said anything to you? Have you had any of those fan experiences that have kind of woken your eyes to how passionate hawkeye fans are uh i mean every now and then um i will but i mean i'm really just a punner so um but i uh i spoke to a lot of fans and um i guess i really appreciate what i do

especially after the um open practices we had um which was nice because that was really my first interaction with fans. So like you said before, it's good that the specialists are getting some love, which is nice. But yeah, like I said, I'm just a punter, so I don't have too many run-ins with fans. But I mean, I kind of like to keep it that way because I'm a pretty reserved and quiet person. But in Santa, I do love talking and meeting new people. So yeah, if anyone's listening, don't be shy to like say hello because yeah, I love it. I love it, man. And I kind of jumped ahead of this, forgot to even bring this up.

But back in Australia, what were you doing prior to coming over here? So yeah, I was working, doing like domestic construction. bring this up but back in australia what were you doing prior to coming over here uh so yeah i was working um doing like domestic construction um yeah i was doing that um when i got out of high school and then like this opportunity came up a couple years ago and like i said i kind of armed and armed and i wasn't really enjoying what i was doing um and then i thought well if i'm not enjoying what i'm doing like why not just go and give this a go? And I'm just a big believer in giving things a crack. And then, yeah, I kind of just went from there.

But, yeah, I was working back home. I thought about going to university and then I saw there was an opportunity to get free education and kick a football in front of hundreds of thousands every week. I thought, well, why not? Yeah, man. And what are you studying right now? I'm doing sports management, but also I'm thinking about –

I do a couple of psychology classes as well, so that's also on my mind. Awesome. And if you weren't to get to the NFL, what would be – obviously you didn't like the domestic construction aspect or the domestic construction route, so what would you want to do if you weren't in the nfl after your college collegiate uh i've always wanted to be a firefighter actually so um if football doesn't work out um that's probably the line of take or um somewhere along the psychology um line of work just because i like talking to people and love helping people that's awesome, man. And how tough has it been to not see your family?

Have you seen your family at all since you've? So I was actually fortunate enough that I could go back in May. I still had to quarantine for a couple of weeks. I was stuck in the hotel for a couple of weeks, which was obviously great fun. But yeah, I was fortunate enough to go back in May for just over a month and see everyone. So it was great to see my family because I'd obviously missed them a lot um so yeah went back into winter so this is actually the first summer I've seen for probably

18 months that's amazing man um and were you homesick at all was it tough being away from them that long I mean I'd be lying if I said I wasn't um but like I said like this is almost um my home away from home now like the guy like the guys on the team um they're just like they're the best people they're always looking out for me especially the coaches like I've become really um close with a lot of coaches um on the team as well and they're always really looking out for me um and there's been a lot of conversations that have really helped me. So yeah, I'll get homesick, um, at times, but like me and you are now it's, you're basically face to face and it's really just a phone call. Um, and it kind of sets you on your way and it's all good.

All right, y'all. And that does do it for part one of our interview with Tori Taylor, a big shout out to Tori for joining the show. He was very open and willing to talk about literally everything. I promise you, if you loved part one, you're going to absolutely love part two. And part two will be dropping tomorrow. So make sure to check that out. The best way to make sure you get that content delivered directly to your smart device is to subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And also make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

That's where we are dropping all the information and nuggets that we are going to be having from a show perspective. And also, we're just staying up to date on the Iowa news that's popping up. So make sure to check that out as well. If you do want more Locked On content, though, and you did not get your fix with just the Locked On Hawkeyes, check out the Locked On Today podcast. Get all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes with the Locked On Today podcast. Host Peter Bukowski updates you on the latest news in every major sport with the help of our local experts.

Follow the Locked On Today podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts at. And that will do it for our show today. Remember to tune in tomorrow as we join Tor Taylor again for part two of our interview with him. And if you like the show, give us that five-star review. Hawkeye Nation, I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you tuning in.

Have a fantastic Tuesday and as always, let's go Hawks.