Huskers appear set to add Australian punter Archie Wilson to 2025 roster
by:
Sean Callahan•about 2 hours•
Sean_Callahan
Nebraska appears to have a key piece to its 2025 football team in place.
HuskerOnline confirmed on Tuesday that NU will host Haileybury College (Australia) punter
Archie Wilson for an official visit over the weekend.
The 6-foot-2, 183 pound Wilson’s visit looks to be more of a formality at this point, as he’s already listed as a registered student at the University of Nebraska. The Huskers are set to begin summer workouts on June 2. It’s assumed Wilson will join the team around that time.
Head coach
Matt Rhule has referenced multiple times now that special teams coordinator
Mike Ekeler has an Australian rules football, rugby-style punter lined up, who apparently can kick with both his left and right foot. Until now, the name had been kept under wraps.
While at Tennessee, Ekeler coached punter
Jackson Ross, who also attended Haileybury College in Australia. Like Wilson, Ross can also kick with both his right and left foot.
“Punting wise, as I talked about in the press conference, [Mike Ekeler] wants to utilize the rugby style,” Rhule said earlier this spring. “He wants to be able to go with someone who can punt right-footed and left-footed. We have a young man ready to come.”
Haileybury College is also the home of All-American punter Tory Taylor
Another interesting nugget is that Wilson is from the same college in Australia that former Cockeye and now Chicago Bears punter
Tory Taylor attended.
Like Wilson, Taylor was a product of
Prokick Australia, a program renowned for preparing Australian athletes for careers in American football.
Taylor set an NCAA record in 2023 with 93 punts totaling 4,479 yards. The record previously dated back to 1938, as he won the 2023 Ray Guy Award given to college football’s top punter.
Since 2007, Prokick has placed 250 punters into U.S. colleges, with approximately 95 percent of them receiving full scholarships.
As of 2024, six of the 36 punters listed on NFL rosters were products of Prokick Australia.
Wilson has strong Australian rules football program
Before Haileybury, Wilson had been involved in the Australian rules football Coates Talent League, representing the Dandenong Stingrays.
He has also played for the Old Haileybury Under-19 men’s team in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) during the 2024 season.
Wilson’s path from Haileybury College to the Big Ten/SEC would be very similar to Taylor’s, Ross’s and
Riley Thompson’s (Penn State). While in Knoxville, Ekeler raved about the impact Ross had in the punting game for the Volunteers. It’s one of the reasons why NU moved on from Washington transfer
Jack McCallister this spring, who is now at Purdue.
“Jackson Ross is one of the most amazing punters I’ve ever been around,” Ekeler said in a press conference at Tennessee. “I mean this guy, legitimately, we’ve built a system around him and it’s been hand-in-hand around his skillset. We’ve got a lot of things that we’ve put in this offseason that I’m beyond excited to roll out there.
“He had 27 kicks— he had 55 punts last year— 27 of them were inside the 20-yard line. Seventeen of those were inside the 10. That’s lethal. Nobody can say that. He led the country in that, and he’s gonna get better and better and better. We’ve been in the scrimmage a couple times in Neyland (Stadium) and he’s had 14 pooches and two of them have been on the 6 and the rest have been inside the 4. That’s a damn weapon.”
