Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This rep has the latest with 2024 punting prospect Drew Miller. He ranks as the nation’s No. 1 punter for the 2024 class with Kohl’s Kicking and the No. 2 punter nationally for Chris Sailer Kicking.
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Drew Miller shared the news of his offer from the University of Georgia yesterday. He also shared word he had set officials with Georgia (June 16-18) and NC State (June 9-June 11) for the summer.
Not sure how many folks noticed that. Or took it seriously. For me, it was significant. For a lot of reasons.
Miller has a unique story, so let’s tee it up and drive it down the fairway:
- The first thing that goes through my mind is timing. Punter scholarships are usually for three or four years. You don’t see schools carrying two punters on scholarships. Unless one has a booming kickoff leg. Or they might be an amazing holder.
- It makes me believe sophomore punter Brett Thorson might be ready for the NFL after the 2023 season. He’s only had one season of college football, but he was already 21 years old when he came to Georgia last year. The popular Australian is more than three years removed from high school graduation equivalent and could leave for the NFL after this season.
- Miller feels the scholarship will offer the chance to win the job his freshman year or to redshirt. It sounds like the plan now is to try to win the job as a freshman with Thorson off to the NFL. “He’s a really good dude,” Miller said of Thorson.
- Army, Air Force, Iowa State, North Carolina State and Texas have all offered him full rides along with Georgia. He also has a preferred walk-on offer to Michigan.
- A lot of times Georgia will ask its specialist prospects to work out every summer at their special teams camps. Miller will not have to do that because he already has his Georgia offer. He earned it after the work he did last summer at the ultra-competitive and pressure-packed UGA specialist camp. If you kick poorly at those events, then it doesn’t matter what the tape says. Those jobs require performing with important eyes on you and competing and beating your peers.
- The stats jump out here for the Iowa resident. He had a 48-yard gross average last fall. Check out the film here.
- Miller is expected to play QB for his high school team this fall. His offense was a Wing-T unit last fall and he can run well. Punter or no punter.
- The 6-foot-2, 200-pounder said he can throw the ball 60 yards. Not many humans walking this earth can throw a ball 60 yards and also punt it 70. He can also kick it through the uprights from about 50 yards.
- Miller drilled a punt one time that went 80 yards in a game. That’s in the air. Not with a roll. He also said he hit a ball at a camp that traveled 60 yards and had a 5.6-second hang. That is ELITE there for a guy who also plays power forward on his high school basketball team.
- This might be my favorite Miller nugget here: He comes from a no-stoplight county in Iowa. He can probably punt the ball to Illinois (15 miles away) in one direction and to Missouri (30 miles away) in the other. He said his city has a population of only 1,500 folks and the nearest Walmart is 25 miles away. Folks, that is about as small-town America as it gets.
- There is already a real connection with Georgia 2023 kicker signee Peyton Woodring and 2023 preferred walk-on long snapper Will Snellings.
- Woodring on Miller: “Drew is the best high school punter I’ve seen and he would add lots of value to our special teams unit.”
- As stated earlier, those punter scholarships usually turn over at the big schools every four years. Thorson, an older guy from Australia, is a unique outlier. Even though there are many Aussie punters in college ball these days.
- The locals in his community call him “Killer Miller” and I can’t help but smile when hearing about that for a kid from a very small town in Iowa with an offer to play for the back-to-back national champs.
- Georgia has been recruiting him for over a year. In my years on the UGA beat, I’ve never heard of the ‘Dawgs recruiting a punter for that long. It helps that Miller has a booming kickoff leg and is already quite sporty with the hold from a Snellings snap for a Woodring kick.
What was it like when he got the Georgia offer?
“I was excited,” he said. “For sure. They’ve been recruiting me for a year now so getting the offer was just real exciting. Especially how close I have gotten with the coaches. They believe in me.”
Miller and Woodring actually have the same trainer.
“I’ve known him for going to camps with him and training with him,” Miller said. “I’ve held for him at camps and just getting to be around him a lot.”
Miller said the Georgia offer was to punt first. But there’s some value he brings to the overall unit as a kickoff specialist and a holder. Miller sent 51 of his 55 kickoffs last fall for touchbacks.
What’s the lure? Is it playing with a friend like Woodring? Or playing for a program right now that is on the top of the mountain?
“It is both actually,” he said. “I’m pretty close with Peyton and also Will Snellings. We’ve practiced live a lot together at camps. We all go to the same trainer. Will snaps. I hold. Peyton kicks. There’s a lot of fun in doing that. I enjoy being around them but also a great program. The back-to-back national champions.”
“They just sent [Jake] Camarda to the NFL so they have a history of developing specialists. Also [former Georgia kicker Jack] Podlesny, too. In the past. Just an overall great program.”
Killer Miller: How Georgia began to recruit Drew Miller
It was about a year ago. Maybe a little earlier. His trainer got in touch with UGA and he got in touch with the ‘Dawgs.
His trainer felt Georgia was already interested and asked if he would be interested in the ‘Dawgs.
“Definitely,” Miller said.
They got in touch. Started developing the relationship. They saw him last June on campus. He hit every ball where they asked him to put it. He dropped it down outside the numbers every time he was asked to.
He’s been recruited by Georgia quality control specialists coach Kirk Benedict and Georgia assistant, Scott Cochran.
The punters are actually a harder match. They are fewer elite punters nationwide than placekickers that can do a strong job at the Power 5 level. That’s the general scouting impression from over the years.
Reminder: Georgia had to go to Australia to find another kicker with a leg like Camarda and his cannon.
That’s the way that Miller sees it. The punters are a pretty hard match. Kickers, for example, don’t have to compete with the Aussie invasion in college football.
“There are also like 23 or 24-year-old guys,” Miller said. “25 or 26-year-olds. They are a lot more developed punters. You have to compete with that. You have no idea who you are competing with.”
Georgia is “definitely” a contender with Miller.
“Just getting to play on the big stage that Georgia plays on,” Miller said. “Then how they’ve developed specialists in the past and also the goal here for me is to play in the NFL. So there’s the past success and then the chance to play on the big stage that Georgia offers.”
“That’s a really good combination.”
Drew Miller: How does he do it?
From talking to a lot of specialists over the years, they always seem to talk about hitting it well with the same descriptors a golf pro would an impressive ball striker.
When he hit that ball with that 5.6-second hang, he said he was struggling a bit.
“I just told myself to relax and let the contact do the work,” he said. “I focused on contact and just smoked it. I looked up and that ball was gone.”
It is hard to describe that “smoked it” feeling.
“I just love it,” Miller said. “It just feels very rewarding, too. Just seeing a good ball come off your foot. You can just feel it. It is just a lot of fun. I just love it. I guess. Just love the feeling of it. I don’t really have a real reason other than I love doing it. I started kicking and punting from when I was seven years old and kind of fell in love with it because of soccer.”
Miller is also a goalkeeper on his Mediapolis High soccer team. That’s in the city of Mediapolis in Iowa.
He will take extra classes this fall to stay enrolled in his high school. He was already a dual-enrollment student.
“I could have graduated almost after this year,” Miller said. “With the class of 2023.”
He said that Georgia is not too far away from home. What is he looking for in the right school?
“One big thing for me is a family-type culture,” he said. ‘Where they put people first. I want to be somewhere that I can enjoy it and enjoy being there while developing a personal relationship with the coaches. Not just only relating to one other on the football field thing. The same goes for the football team as well. I want to be somewhere where I click with the guys who will be my teammates for four years.”
“I want to somewhere I can enjoy and somewhere I can look forward to coming in day-in and day-out and putting in the work. I also want somewhere that will develop me as a specialist because I want to play in the NFL. Those are the biggest things.”
He wants to major in digital marketing.
Miller called Snellings, the 2023 walk-on, as a “great dude” and a “heck of an athlete” and that hits the mark. Snellings, the son of former UGA defensive lineman Paul Snellings, had some college interest to play linebacker. He was an All-Region LB at Whitewater High in Fayetteville and a great story in his own right.
Look for Miller to make his college decision by the end of June. That will be after his officials.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on DawgNation.com)
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- Dylan Raiola: How Georgia football continues to ‘deliver’ in the recruiting of the nation’s No. 1 prospect
