When Scott Cochran was hired to be Georgia’s special-teams coordinator in February, punter Jake Camarda didn’t know what to expect.
Cochran had spent the previous 13 seasons as Alabama’s head strength-and-conditioning coach, and though Cochran enjoyed coaching special teams early in his career as a graduate assistant, it had been more than a decade since he held an on-field role.
“He’s someone who came in and you kind of have no idea what you’re expecting,” Camarda said Wednesday. “You really don’t know what you’re going to get out of it. Especially him coming from a strength-guy background, you really just are kind of like, ‘All right, I guess we’re just gonna see how this goes.’ It’s turned out to be really great.”
According to ESPN’s special-teams efficiency rankings, the Bulldogs have the best special teams in the SEC this season and the seventh-best in the country. Kicker Jack Podlesny has made 83% of his field-goal attempts and is a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award, which goes to the nation’s top placekicker. Camarda also is a semifinalist for a national award — the Ray Guy Award for the nation’s best punter.
That success may not all be attributable to Cochran — Georgia’s specialists are good at what they do — but his presence has certainly helped.
“His strength-coach background, I personally think that it’s really interesting because I can, and a lot of specialists can, kind of pick apart his brain a little bit to see different things that he thinks about and that he does,” Camarda said. “It’s really cool to see the different knowledge that he has so we can try to apply that to our game and try to use that to further our skills.
“... He does a really good job handling our room. I think he’s a really good coach. I’ve really enjoyed getting to be a player under him. It’s been a good time. It’s been a lot of fun so far.”
Camarda has battled a bit of inconsistency this season with a few shanked punts, but when he’s on, he’s undeniably one of the top punters in the country. He averages 47.8 yards per punt, good for third in the country. The two punters above him, Arizona State’s Michael Turk and Nevada’s Julian Diaz, have played only two and five games, respectively, compared with Camarda’s eight.
And while winning the Ray Guy Award would be a big deal for Camarda, he said his goals for the season don’t include individual accolades.
“Would it be cool to bring another piece of hardware to Athens?” Camarda said. “Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to my goals, really my goal was just this year to come in, be as consistent as I possibly could and just help our team win football games. At the end of the day, if I can do that and help our team win more games, that’s most important to me.”
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