2022 Countdown to IUFB Kickoff: 94 Days (James Evans)

Written by T.J. Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)

Welcome to the 2022 edition of the Hoosier Huddle Countdown! We are now officially underway as we countdown from 100 to the beginning of the 2022 Indiana University football season. Each day, we will take a look at one (or two) players on the current roster and highlight the players role in the upcoming season. Today’s profiles are a pair of expected starters: punter James Evans and interior defensive stalwart Demarcus Elliott.

Name: James Evans

Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand (Sacred Heart College in Auckland)

Position: Punter

Year: Sophomore

Height/Weight: 6’1”/218 pounds

Instagram: @james8evans

It’s rare for a player to start his first ever collegiate football game. That feat becomes even more rare when the individual’s first college game is the first football game he’s ever played. While rare, it is not unheard of and IU punter James Evans added himself to the list of Oceania transplants to become college punters as he started all 12 games for IU as a true freshmen. The campaign was a mixed bag for the New Zealand native as he averaged 41.9 yards but struggled to find consistency. As would be expected, Evans improved during the season and played his best football late in the season including a 46.6 yard average on five punts against Minnesota. His average ended up being the second-best average in the country for a freshman.

James Evans is a product of the Prokick Australia program in Melbourne. The man who he succeeded at punter, Haydon Whitehead, also came from that program and after playing rugby and squash in high school, Evans moved to Australia to enroll in Prokick in January of 2020. He was unable to make a visit to IU because of COVID-19 so the first time he set foot in Bloomington was when he enrolled in the spring of 2021 and participated in practices. Evans is expected to improve quite a bit with a year of experience under his belt and he should be one of the better punters in the league in 2022.

“We are really excited about him coming back. It’s going to be monstrous for him,” IU special teams coordinator Kasey Teegardin told the media. “He is right where he needs to be but he needs to be more consistent. When you look at how we punted last year, when we needed it, it wasn’t what we needed. That’s the biggest thing for him. When we are backed up and punting out of our end zone, he has got to get a good ball off.”