Australians are dominating the punting landscape of college football, including here in El Paso
EL PASO, Texas -- Have you ever noticed how many Australians are punters for college football teams? Did you know that UTEPs punter Josh Sloan is Australian? Or that there's a program in Australia specifically designed to train Australians to be punters?
Come January 2022, that program titled 'Prokick Australia' will have sent 180 players over to the United States to play college football.
Sloan grew up playing Aussie Rules Football in Melbourne but decided to transfer those skills to the gridiron with the help of Prokick. He trained with them in Melbourne for about 11 months before he got the nod from UTEP.
"It was a quick turnaround, that night I remember getting off the phone and I went straight out to like the kitchen and I was like mum I'm leaving this weekend and I couldn't handle it," Sloan said. "I was just mind blown at what was about to happen."
Sloan, like many punters in the U.S., owe where they are now to Nathan Chapman - another Aussie, who after playing eight years of Aussie Rules Football at the top level, gave punting a try in the U.S.
In 2004, he put on the green and gold for the Green Bay Packers, and then in 2007, he began carving a path for others to do the same.
"We've got some instincts within our natural game here that you won't know you need it until you need it," Chapman said.
When a college decides they 'need it,' Chapman is ready - he said right now another 60 Aussies are currently training with him.
"We often refer to it like ordering a pizza," Chapman said. "You tell us what you want, then we'll go to our stocks and we'll find the player that does it and the best profile player that's gonna suit your institution."
For Sloan, UTEP might just be the beginning.
"My goal is the NFL," Sloan said. "I feel like I could get there, I feel like I've got the talent to get there, it's all on me."
Sloan wouldn't be the first Aussie out of Prokick to put on an NFL jersey. Right now there are five currently doing just that.
