There were a lot of areas that Doug Marrone saw the need for improvement this spring but none more pressing that the kicking game. To say that he was disappointed with the only in-house kicker, freshman Austin Wallis, would be an understatement. Back on April 2nd, here's his response to a question about how the placekicking was going:
Not what we need.
So when you don't have what you need, what do you do? You go out and get what you need. Enter Shane Raupers. Raupers comes to us from Athens High School in Pennsylvania. He made the Class AA Second Team last year but despite receiving some interest from BC, Penn State and Syracuse, never got an offer.
In 2008,. Shane made 24 of25 PATs and 4 of 5 FGs as well as kicking 28 touchbacks. His all-time long is 47. Shane also handled punting, quarterback and some cornerback duties for Athens.
Get mesmerized by Raupers mighty leg below:
You can also watch him throw the pigskin and handle an offense here. Not that he'll need that in college...we think.