OXFORD, Miss. - Ole Miss punter Tyler Campbell doesn’t regret redshirting last season.
He said it was the best thing for himself and the team, but redshirting meant Campbell missed his one opportunity to play a college game in his hometown of Little Rock, which last season was the site of an Arkansas-Ole Miss matchup for the first time since 1992.
Campbell, a Little Rock Catholic graduate who played his high school games in War Memorial Stadium, sat in the stands with his family and cheered for the Rebels as they beat the Razorbacks 30-27 on Bryson Rose’s 31-yard field goal as time expired.
“It was a great win for us, but it was hard to sit and watch being back at my home stadium from high school,” Campbell said earlier this week. “That was definitely the weirdest game for me last season.”
Campbell, a fifth-year senior, will be on the field against Arkansas today when the Razorbacks play the Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“Playing against the homestate team gets me excited,” he said. “I definitely want to beat them.”
Campbell, who has a career average of 44.7 yards on 205 punts, was a surprise redshirt last season along with kicker Andrew Ritter.
Ole Miss Coach Hugh Freeze took a gamble redshirting them - and going with Jim Broadway as the punter and Rose as the kicker in their senior seasons - so the Rebels would have Campbell and Ritter as seniors this season and two additional scholarships for players on offense and defense.
The gamble paid off as Broadway averaged 41.1 yards and Rose made 18 of 28 field goals and was perfect on 49 extra-point attempts to help the Rebels finish 7-6.
Ole Miss is 5-3 this season with Campbell averaging 45.3 yards on 30 punts to rank fifth nationally and Ritter making 10 of 13 field goals, including a 41-yarder with two seconds left to beat LSU 27-24.
“The way things have turned out, us redshirting was the best thing for everybody,” Campbell said. “Jim and Bryson did a great job last year, and me and Andrew are doing well, and we’re in grad school now.”
Campbell is working toward his master’s in business administration and had a 4.0 grade-point average last semester after graduating with bachelor’s degrees in accounting and finance with a 3.65 grade-point average.
As a freshman, Campbell ranked No. 22 nationally when he averaged 44.0 yards on 43 punts. He led the NCAA with a 46.4-yard average on60 punts as a sophomore and two years ago he averaged 43.6 yards on 72 punts.
His 9,168 punting yards lead all active SEC players, and he’s had 62 punts downed inside the opponents’ 20-yard line, including 10 this season.
“Tyler’s a big weapon for us on defense. He’s flipped the field several times,” Freeze said. “He’s a great kid, too.”
Freeze said while Campbell has had a good season overall, he “wasn’t quite himself ” in the previous game against Idaho when two of his punts went 39 yards, giving the Vandals starting field position at their 29 and at the Ole Miss 48.
During an open date last week, Campbell said he worked to regain his consistency with his drops and leg movement and believes he fixed the problem.
“My leg was crossing my body,” Campbell said. “It’s like a golf swing, one little thing can get the whole end result messed up. Hopefully in a game it’s just a muscle memory, and I’m confident I’ve got it back now.”
When Houston Nutt was Arkansas’ coach, he began showing interest in Campbell. Then after Nutt became Ole Miss’ coach in 2008, Campbell accepted a scholarship offer the next year.
“I don’t think I was on Arkansas’ radar after Coach Nutt left there,” Campbell said. “Coach Nutt just kept recruiting me to Ole Miss, and when I took my visit down here I fell in love with everything about Oxford and the campus.”
The Rebels had back-to-back 9-4 seasons under Nutt, but he was fired after they went a combined 6-18 in 2010 and 2011. Freeze, a former Rebels assistant who went 10-2 in his one season as Arkansas State’s coach, came back to Ole Miss to take over the program.
“It was tough to see Coach Nutt go, especially since he’s the one who brought me here,” Campbell said. “I just had to be open-minded to the change, and Coach Freeze and his staff obviously have come in and done an excellent job.
“We weren’t winning many games, but now we’ve got it turned back around again and we’re headed in the right direction.”At a glance TYLER CAMPBELL COLLEGE Mississippi POSITION Punter CLASS Fifth-year senior AGE 23 HOMETOWN Little Rock HIGH SCHOOL Little Rock Catholic NOTEWORTHY Led the NCAA in punting as a sophomore in 2010, averaging 46.4 yards. … 62 of his 205 career punts have been downed inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. … His 9,168 punting yards lead active SEC players. … 44.7-yard career average. … Ranks fifth nationally this season with a 45.3-yard average. … Has never attempted a fake punt. … Also played linebacker at Catholic and has four career tackles on punt coverage for the Rebels.
Sports, Pages 25 on 11/09/2013