To close out our off-season recruiting series we will be highlighting former Liberty kicker, and graduate transfer Alex Probert. The former Liberty Flame grew up in Andover, Minnesota, before beginning his college career in Lynchburg, Virginia. He originally began his career at as a very underrated prospect coming in with little to no expectations, but he would eventually go on to carve out a productive four-year career for the Flames.

Probert was rated as the 14th best overall kicker in the transfer portal. For his Liberty career, Probert made 46-of-63 field goals and 140-of-150 PATs. He is third on Liberty’s all-time scoring list with 275 points. He is also third in career field goals made (46) and career PATs made (140).

Style

A kicker obviously has a much different job than most other players on a football team. Personally, I believe that the most important trait in a kicker is personality. A team’s kicker is often isolated from the rest of the team, kicking field goals at practice on a side-field or practicing in the net behind the bench during the game. A kicker can get all of the blame, but very rarely any of the praise.

Probert has his own YouTube channel where he makes training videos, vlogs and really any content under the sun.

He seems to be very personable and a fun guy to be around. Like I said, a kicker needs to be able to take all of the blame and almost none of the praise, so sometimes you have to be a little “wacky” and I think Probert fits that description.

Scouting Description

In all seriousness you still have to be very talented to kick footballs at a division one level. Probert has a strong leg, with a career-long field goal of 51 yards. His accuracy can be inconsistent at times, as he is 68.4% for his career on field goals and 94.3% on extra points, but last season he only missed one field goal from under 40 yards on the whole season.

He is a traditional right footed kicker, and last season for the Flames he averaged 62.5 yards per kickoff with 64.6 percent (51-of-79) resulting in touch backs. He certainly has the talent to kick in the Big 12 conference.

Final Verdict

Connor Assalley had a terrific year last season for the Cyclones as the starting kicker, making 15-of-19 field goals and 49-of-51 PATs. Therefore it will tough for Probert to take control of the starting place kicker role, but I could see a scenario where Probert gets kickoff duties to relieve Assalley of overworking his leg, while Connor would remain the normal field goal and extra point kicker.

At the end of the day, if Alex Probert isn’t the starting kicker for Iowa State in 2020 he will certainly add a terrific locker room presence which is always very important for any football team.