MORGANTOWN — You never want to see an injury happen to one of your teammates, but in the case of WVU kicker Evan Staley, it opened up an opportunity last season.
Mike Molina struggled to get over a hip injury that sidelined him halfway through the season, and the next man up was Staley, a Romney native and Hampshire graduate, who walked on to the Mountaineers, in 2016.
“Mike came up to me and told me that I would be taking over his role and everything,” Staley said. “He helped me through that process, and I had to step up and help the team. I knew I had reps in team practice and knew that I was confident in myself. I just acted on those feelings.”
Those feelings seemed to work — he nailed six of his seven field goal attempts and all 16 of his extra point attempts. His only miss was a 34-yard kick, against Iowa State.
Staley was the kickoff specialist all season, but Molina earned the place-kicking duties during the 2016 season and it carried over into 2017. When he got hurt, it was unsure who would replace Molina, but Staley’s previous track record spoke for itself.
As a senior with the Trojans, he averaged 42 1/2 yards per kick, including a school record 54-yarder. Staley’s performance earned him first-team all-state honors and the Fulton Walker Award, given to West Virginia’s top specialist.
But kicking in front of a few hundred fans in the Appalachian Mountain Athletic Conference and Eastern Panhandle is a little different from kicking in front of 60,000-plus in the Big 12.
“I think it’s just adapting,” Staley said. “Coming from a small town, you have to adapt to all the people. In that situation, I’ve never been on the biggest stage before. I think that overcoming that obstacle has been the biggest thing.”
Staley believes the physical aspect of kicking is the same regardless of which level you do it at. The biggest hurdle is getting it out of his mind where you’re doing it and just focus like he would on the practice field.
“Kicking is this thing when you go into a game, you can’t be thinking about what you’re doing, because then the nerves start settling in and everything,” Staley said. “You just have to know that repetition in practice — doing it hundreds and hundreds of times — is going to replicate during games.”
Although he earned the starting job when Molina got hurt, Staley isn’t guaranteed anything this spring or heading into this fall. While his name is at the top of the spring depth chart, there is competition brewing below him, especially with newcomer Skyler Simcox.
Simcox, a transfer from Western Kentucky, redshirted with the Big Red last year but had a stellar sophomore season, in 2016. He made 16 of 22 field goal attempts, including two from over 50 yards, and also made 70 of 71 extra points.
Simcox’s resume speaks for itself, but having him in camp to compete helps keep Staley from becoming complacent.
“Coach Mike (Molinari) has put us in great position with Skyler being here, as well as Luke Hogan, who I competed with last year,” Staley said. “Every day competing against each other, it’s making us all better. It pushes us all to get better and we get the most out of it.”
Special-teams coach Mark Scott is excited to have as many options as he does in the kicking game, and neither Simcox nor Staley has stood out yet.
“Skyler has more experience right now,” Scott said. “Now Evan gained quite a bit of experience last year, obviously, with kickoff and the last part of the year in kicking field goals. Both guys have really good legs. We’re going to be deeper there than we’ve been since I’ve been here. We have two quality guys, and whoever wins that field goal battle, the other one is probably going to have a leg up on the kickoff competition. We’ll see how that plays out and see how durable those guys are. We don’t want to throw too much at them, especially early in the spring, and progress them along.”
