Kickin’ It New School

SMU’s Strong-Legged Matt Szymanski Prepares To Do It All

DALLAS – Fear not, Mustang fans. Punter/kicker extraordinaire Thomas Morstead may have left the building, but Matt Szymanski is in the house. The 6-1, 185-pound Szymanski, who sat out last season after transferring to SMU from Texas A&M, said this week at Ford Stadium that his goal is simply to be “the best.”

“I have high standards for myself,” he said. “I’m a perfectionist. I never want to miss a field goal. I never want to have a bad punt or a bad kickoff. Awards don’t matter to me.” Szymanski said he made the switch after two years with the Aggies to have the chance to punt as well as kick.

Voted the nation’s top high school kicker in 2005 by Chris Sailer Kicking, Szymanski’s 61-yard field goal for A&M Consolidated High ( College Station, Tex.), is the longest in Texas 5A playoff history. His 19 field goals that year - without a kicking tee – also set a new Texas 5A record.

Szymanski finished high school a year early and was the starting kicker at Texas A&M for a time as a 17-year-old freshman. On the year, he hit 12-12 PATs and was 2-5 on field goal attempts. The next year, Szymanski made 15-25 field goal tries and converted 39 of 40 PATs. He also put 36 percent of his kickoffs into the end zone.

“At A&M, he was only a few near-misses from having a pretty solid year and getting things going,” said Szymanski’s trainer, former Dallas Cowboy kicker Chris Boniol, by phone. “But one thing that is going to help him [at SMU] is he’s going to be doing all of it, [punts, kickoffs and field goals.] … The more you get on the field, the more you get in that game rhythm and I think that will benefit him.”

“He’s probably one of the strongest kickers I’ve ever seen at any level,” Boniol said. “Definitely, he’s a Sunday-type of player.” Sitting out last season was understandably tough for Szymanski. “But it was good at the same time,” he said. “As much as I wanted to go in there and play, I knew it was good for me to sit out, and to take a step back and re-approach how I attack certain problems.”

What was the pressure like at Texas A&M? “I never felt pressure,” Szymanski said. “It was enjoyable for me. I loved going out there with the fans yelling and screaming. It was great.” “Matt is an elite-level kicker,” said SMU coach June Jones. “He certainly has some big shoes to fill since he’s replacing a guy who was chosen in the NFL draft, but we’re confident in his abilities. He’ll do a great job for us.”

Szymanski will handle all kicking and punting chores for SMU this fall. Photo credit: Rick Rodriguez

Why SMU?

When looking for another school, Szymanski said he wanted to stay in Texas but didn’t want to sit two years, the rule for transferring from one Big 12 program to another.

When he visited SMU’s special teams coach, the late Frank Gansz, his search ended. Gansz’ upbeat, positive attitude had an immediate impact on Szymanski.

“I was like, ‘This is what I want to be around,’” Szymanski said. “I didn’t have this at A&M. I didn’t have somebody that truly, I felt, loved the game.”

Szymanski said he learned “just everything” from Gansz, from how to treat people, to proper demeanor, to how to be an NFL player. “He wanted to help you out in every way - school, sports, spiritually, anything. He was just great.”

“It’s tough that he’s gone because you learned so much. You feel like you got a semester’s worth of school with one conversation you had with him. He helped me out tremendously. He made me love the game so much more. I thought I loved the game until I started talking to him.”

Will Gansz’ influence be felt this season? “Yeah, I think so,” Szymanski said, “Because one thing that he wanted the most was for everybody to realize the gift that they have and to understand how fun football is.”

“I think since he’s gone people are like, man, he really wanted this.”

Szymanski said he also learned a lot from Morstead, a New Orleans Saints draft pick in April. “Watching him, I realized what I have to be and then some. On the field he just focused. He was always consistent. But off the field, [he had a] great attitude, [was a] good person, and never got into any trouble.

“[He was] always doing the right thing, always working his butt off in the weight room. In some ways I’m following in his footsteps.”

Szymanski said he and Kellis Cunningham, last year’s kickoff specialist, have a good relationship too. “He’s a tough guy,” Szymanski said. “He’s mentally strong. It kind of rubs off on you.

“Both of them, [Morstead and Cunningham], have impacted me in positive ways.”

No Tee, No Problem

Working with Boniol the summer before his sophomore year in high school, Szymanski first realized his potential. “I went from barely making the ball to the 20-yard-line on kickoffs to kicking the ball out of the end zone,” Szymanski said, “and barely making 45-yards [on field goals] to being able to hit 60 yards.”

“I started pushing all my other sports to the side,” he said. “The only thing I kept doing was track. It just didn’t get in the way of anything.”

After struggling with field goals off the tee one day, he tried it without one and never went back. “I couldn’t even really tell the difference between kicking off the ground and kicking off the tee.” And his accuracy was better without a tee.

“He was an unbelievable kicker for us,” said Szymanski’s high school coach, Jim Slaughter, by phone.

Besides exceptional leg strength, Slaughter pointed to Szymanski’s mental toughness. “He truly, truly, with all his heart, believed that he was going to make it when he lined up [for a field goal]. It was hard to rattle him.”

SMU Kicker Matt Szymanski

Szymanski’s 61-yard field goal came in the pressure-cooker of a state semifinal match-up with eventual state champion Euless Trinity in ‘05. “At the time it was 6-0, [Euless Trinity], and we were just trying to put points on the board,” Slaughter said. “Those points going in at halftime were big points. It was a great kick.”

“Nothing was really going through my mind,” Szymanski said, “besides I did have this feeling that I was going to make it.”

Szymanski felt ready for college ball after that season and finished his high school academic requirements the next summer. He said growing up playing organized soccer with kids four years his senior aided his early move to college. “I was used to kids more mature than me, people faster than me [and] stronger than me,” he said.

Szymanski has no regrets about leaving high school early. “It was a good learning experience,” he said. “It made me mature faster. … It just helps me out in the long run.”

Szymanski said he never had “kicking heroes.” “I just always kind of focused on what I needed to do. I never really tried to compare myself to other kickers. I just always wanted to be better than myself.”

Though kickoffs and field goals have been his strongest suits, Szymanski is now improving at Morstead’s forte. “Recently I’ve been excelling a lot at punting,” he said. “Thomas, he raised the standard for me.”

What does Boniol expect when Szymanski takes the field again on September 5? “I think you’re going to see success,” he said. “I think the biggest thing for Matt is to get in there and get a little bit of success and find a nice little groove, which he has that potential to do.”

Notes:
*Szymanski was named “Best Kicker” by 5A TexasFootball.com in ’05 and won summer kicking camps all across the country in ’04 and ’05.
*Brandy Brownlee has the longest field goal in SMU history, a 57-yarder against Texas Tech in ’85 in a 9-7 Mustangs win.
*Frank Gansz died April 27 after complications following knee replacement surgery. His memorial service was held June 5 at the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.