Dylan Ritchie '24 Recruiting Profile

I found out that I was a kicker one day by accident, during gym class one day my friends were messing around throwing around a football and since I played soccer at the time, I thought it would be fun to kick it. I had my friend set the ball up at the 20-yard line and kicked it, right through the up rights. After the football coach heard about that I was invited out to practice that day to kick for the freshman team. After two days with them I got moved up to JV, it was our last game of the season down by two and they sent me out on the field for the first time ever to go win the game from 32 yards out, right through the middle. I got carried off the field and everyone was cheering for me even though they had no idea who I was, a freshman that joined the team that week and got moved up to JV, and after that week got moved up to varsity for a few games. After that I decided that kicking and punting was something that I wanted to work hard on and become the best that I could be at it. My sophomore year we ended up going to state and being state runners up after I made 2 field goals, a PAT to tie the game and then another to win it in sectionals which was our second ever sectional win in school history. Then my junior year which I just finished I beat my goal of getting 50 points and ended up getting 58, we went to regionals where we fell short of winning.

During these three years of football, I have learned a lot about myself and learned how to overcome many obstacles, whether it was small changes to my form or finding out how to gain more distance. After working hard over the off season, I went to a Kohls ranking camp where I got rated a three-and-a-half-star kicker and then went to another over the summer and kept that three and a half star for kicking and got three more stars for punting. After being evaluated again in December of 2022 I am now a 4 star kicker and a 3 and a half star punter after only 2 years of kick and not even a year of punting. As of January a kept my four starts and got another for punting as I am four stars for punting now. For academics I am doing well with a 3.5 GPA I’m hoping to graduate high school in pursue of a Batcheler’s degree. One skill that I think I have and I do well with is the ability to perform well under high pressure situations, and keeping focused on the game and not all the other distractions going on around me. I love being a part of a team and being able to make a difference and help others out.

My Kohls kicking profile is listed below,

https://www.kohlskicking.com/player-profiles/dylan-ritchie