When Brad Craddock climbed up out of his seat on a bus taking Maryland’s football team home following a victory at Penn State in early November, several teammates were eager to see what kind of hijinks the affable junior could be orchestrating.
The kicker was still experiencing the highs of a game-winning field goal — a 43-yarder in the final minute that gave the Terrapins their first road victory over the Nittany Lions. It wouldn’t be at all a surprise for the charismatic and easygoing Craddock to rally his teammates in celebration, adding yet another punctuation mark to a festive trip that already featured plenty of them.
Craddock, though, had a different idea. He had worked in a bus depot for a time after graduating from high school in Australia and, keenly aware of the challenges likely to result from the driver transporting 70 celebratory college students on a 200-mile haul, Craddock grabbed a plastic bag and began strolling past rows of seats.
“He was going back through the aisles, making sure everybody picked up their trash so that the bus driver didn’t have to pick it up,” holder Michael Tart said. “I remember just thinking, ’This guy is on top of the world, just made the game-winning kick, and here he is, trying to help the bus driver out.’ That just shows his character.”
Such humility has served Craddock well since he arrived in the United States in the summer of 2012, and earlier this month, it guided him to unprecedented success. Following a record-setting season, the junior was selected to a host of All-America teams and named the recipient of the Lou Groza Award, given annually to the top collegiate kicker in the country.
Craddock made 18 of 19 field goals this season, including 11 from more than 40 yards and a school-record 57-yarder against Ohio State on Oct. 4. Until that lone miss, a tying attempt with 3:45 remaining in a 41-38 loss to Rutgers in the regular-season finale on Nov. 29, he had made 24 consecutive field goal attempts, matching a Big Ten record set 12 years ago.
He can atone for that miss, and continue to increase his school-record 81.7 career field goal conversion percentage, when Maryland plays in the Foster Farms Bowl against Stanford on Tuesday.
“It’s just a lesson for all of us that if you work at something and are dedicated and stay focused, you can be as good as you want to be,” coach Randy Edsall said. “Having a guy like that, we don’t win some of the games we win this year — or stay close in some of the games we stayed close in this year — without him.”
Craddock’s path to Maryland, let alone becoming the best kicker in the country, seemed rather unlikely. Growing up in Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia, Craddock played soccer and tennis but learned to kick by playing Australian rules football.
His youth coaches, pleased with the distance and consistency of his punts, suggested Craddock attend a variety of development camps to improve his skill. While attending one in February 2011, Craddock was noticed by Chris Sailer, a former kicker at UCLA and now a California-based punting and kicking coach.
Believing Craddock’s ability could translate well to the American game, Sailer encouraged Craddock to tweak his punting style and learn how to placekick. Having graduated from high school almost a year earlier, Craddock would split his day by working at the bus depot in the morning and serving as a tennis coach in the evening by spending three hours a day practicing his kicking.
“There was never a time where I was actually like, ’This is what I want to do,’” Craddock said. “I was always interested in it, and then it just sort of happened.”
To get noticed by American college coaches, Craddock would stay awake until the early hours of the morning, combing through a list of contacts he had pulled off web sites for the better part of four to five months.
Coaches at Oregon, TCU, Arkansas and Texas Tech were among those who expressed interest, but Maryland was the first to offer a scholarship in May 2012 — and Craddock accepted it blindly, knowing so little about the university and the area that he didn’t even know Maryland was a state.
Recruited as a punter, Craddock was thrust into placekicking duties during training camp in 2012, when Nick Ferrara sustained a hip injury. That first season was rough: Hampered by shaky fundamentals, Craddock made just 10 of 16 field goals, including a 52-yarder in a victory over Wake Forest.
Craddock contemplated remaining in Australia after the season, at one point vowing not to return to Maryland once his spring semester ended. Craddock’s parents, Ray and Leonie, encouraged their son not to quit, and he improved significantly as a sophomore, making 20 of 25 attempts and all but one of his 17 tries from within 39 yards.
This season, Craddock excelled. The game-winner against Penn State — the second Maryland victory over the Nittany Lions in 37 games — served as a highlight, and his 57-yard field goal against the Buckeyes stood as the second-longest in the country.
Those accomplishments made him a finalist for the Lou Groza Award, which he earned over Florida State’s Roberto Aguayo, the previous year’s winner, and West Virginia’s Josh Lambert.
And while Craddock still has a year remaining at Maryland — one in which he said he knows he can improve his consistency and his distance — the prospects of a professional football career are looming.
It’s something that Craddock has had in his mind since arriving at Maryland, but one that he believed only became more realistic in the past several months.
“I think that’s sort of the goal when you come to college,” Craddock said. “If you don’t have a higher goal that’s pushing you and making you get better, you probably won’t.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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