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| Clear Creek Amana senior Tyreke Williams |
Your Prep Sports
TIFFIN – Standing 6-foot-1 and weighing 220 pounds Tyreke Williams is quickly recognized as a football player.
It is picking the position at which Williams excels that people often struggle.
“People ask me what position I play and when I say kicker they don’t believe because I look more like a lineman,” Williams said. “I’ve gotten used to that, I just laugh about it.”
Williams may look like a lineman but he produces like one of the best kickers in the state.
The senior has handled both the punting and place kicking duties for Clear Creek Amana the past two seasons while double as a defensive lineman and has established himself as one of the top kickers around.
Williams connected on 12-of-17 field goals the past two seasons with a career-long of 47 yards.
“I’ve never been fortunate enough to work with a kicker like Tyreke before,” Clear Creeek Amana coach Matt Hughes said. “Most of the times in high school football you have to go for it on fourth downs or not kick the field goal so having that option is something that we’ve gotten used to and he’s been such a huge asset for our team. He’s been a special player for us.”
Williams grew up playing soccer so when coaches were looking for place kicking volunteers in middle school he threw up his hand.
After three test kicks the kicking job belonged to Williams.
“In middle school coaches came up and asked if I could kick a ball through the up rights,” Williams said. “I kicked one through, they moved it back a little further I kicked it through, moved it back a little further and I kicked it through and they said, ‘alright, you’re our kicker’,”
Since that time Williams became a major asset for the Clippers with both his punting and place kicking.
This fall Williams had the best season of his career helping Clear Creek Amana to a 7-2 record that included the first 6-0 start in program history.
“I think I’ve had a great year but I couldn’t do it without a perfect snap and a perfect hold,” Williams said. “It’s been really fun, last year we had a good year and this year we’ve built on that and had a great season so it’s been really fun to be a part of that.”
As a senior Williams made 6-of-7 field goal attempts and was 24-of-29 on extra points.
Of his 44 kick offs 14 went for touchbacks.
All of those were improvements over 2015 when Williams was 6-of-10 on field goals.
“I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better just going to camps and working at it,” Williams said. “I’ve worked on kicking a lot the past few years.”
Where Williams impressed the most this season was with his punting.
He averaged 42.5 yards per punt o 31 punts, good for fourth best in the state among players with at least 10 punts.
“When you have somebody that can consistently kick 45 plus yard punts and then boom some 60 yard punts in there too it totally changes the field position battle,” Hughes said. “That is something that we got used to having that as a weapon and we will definitely miss that when he’s not around anymore.”
Williams closed his career on Friday by converting all four of his extra points and booming a 56-yarder on his only punt attempt in a 42-6 win over Central DeWitt.
He would like to continue his kicking career in college and is looking at several options.
Hughes believes that Williams, who has made field goals as long as 65 yards in practice, has the potential to enjoy a strong collegiate career.
“I don’t think there is any doubt he can kick at the next level,” Hughes said. “You just don’t see strong legs like that. He has every bit of a leg and that’s without having a kicking coach. If someone brought him on and spent time on teaching him more the fundamentals of kicking he could have a great career.”
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