Sometimes you just can’t simulate it. No matter how much a football player practices, established routines quickly become complicated when all the lights are on.

Senior kicker Andrew Flesher knows that feeling. Last season against Princeton, he took the field late in the fourth quarter to attempt a 50-yard potential game-winning field goal.

Flesher’s lengthy kick—just the second of his career—sailed wide left. Harvard lost in triple overtime.
“I think the Princeton field goal was one of the field goals when I noticed it was a big moment, because it was at the end of the game,” Flesher said.

But experience is the best teacher. The very next week, Flesher took the field late against Dartmouth in a tied game. With 48 seconds on the clock, the then-junior punched in a 23-yarder to seal the victory for his team.

Tasked with filling in for injured then-senior kicker David Mothander ’14 in the middle of last season, Flesher went from having never attempted a collegiate field goal to converting two overtime kicks and a game-winner in just three weeks.

“You just get a little bit more used to it,” Flesher said. “By the time the Dartmouth kick happened, I felt pretty confident.”

Special teams occupies a unique place in football. While defenders rely on speed and brute force, punters count on skill and accuracy. While quarterbacks adapt to a defense, a kicker’s ally is consistency and repetition.

Furthermore, punters and placekickers are only on the field for a handful of plays each game. Whereas position players can get into a rhythm and feel out their opponents, kickers and punters need to play 100 percent every time they step between the lines.

One swing of a kicker’s leg often goes the longest way in determining the outcome of a game.
“We all realize that special teams is [an] equally if not even a little bit more important endeavor,” captain Norman Hayes said. “We can gain and lose a lot of momentum just by one swing on special teams.”

Players on special teams arguably face more pressure on a weekly basis than any of the other men on the roster. If the offense marches down the field and a drive stalls, the kicker is instructed—nay, expected—to convert for three points.

While a kicker’s impact on a game can be substantial, the fleeting nature of the opportunity demands that special teams players remain physically and mentally sharp at all times.

“We stay warm all game; you keep your legs loose,” senior punter David Bicknell said. “As a unit we’ve been doing this our whole lives pretty much…. You [must] be ready when you’re needed.”

As a punter, Bicknell’s role is significantly less flashy than Flesher’s. No one likes to see the punter come in on fourth down; it means the offense has failed to do its job.

Nevertheless, Bicknell embraces the opportunity to pin his opponent inside the red zone and contribute to the Crimson’s success.

“Every role on the team has its own specific job,” Bicknell said. “My job is to make sure that the opponents are pinned as far deep into their territory as possible, so I do what I’m supposed to do for the team.”