New breed of NFL kickers: Baby-faced and deadly from long range

• So far this season, two kickers have made field goals of 60 yards or more
• Through four weeks, field-goal accuracy is 90 percent
• Will the NFL see a 70-yarder soon? Kickers say yes

EMORY, Va. – Justin Tucker's NFL odyssey began here, in the foothills of sparsely populated southwest Virginia, on a small college campus beset on one side by stomach-churning mountain roads and on the other by a scenic interstate.

The future Baltimore Ravens kicker was a 15-year old soccer and football player in football-rich Austin, Texas, when his father read a Sports Illustrated article that mentioned Doug Blevins, a man with cerebral palsy who tutored kickers, including Adam Vinatieri.

The Tuckers flew the wheelchair-confined Blevins from Virginia to Texas and later sent their son to work with Blevins at Emory and Henry College and near the teacher's home in Abingdon, Va. Justin went on to earn a scholarship to Texas, and as a rookie this season, supplanted a Pro Bowl kicker with the Baltimore Ravens.

He is the prototype of the new NFL kicker: Young, experienced, powerful and accurate as can be.

Tucker missed his first kick in nine pro attempts on Sunday, a 47-yarder sent wide right. Around the league, kickers are more accurate than they've ever been, hitting 90% of their field goal attempts in the first four weeks of 2012 vs. 83% in 2011, though that 2012 number might shrink a bit with winter weather.

More stats: In 1992, kickers made 49% of field -goal attempts from 50 yards or more; in 2012, 79%. The average points per game scored on field goals: 7.3 in 1992, 11 this season.

An NFL maxim once held that kickers get better with age. Not anymore. Going back to the beginning of last season, kickers with zero to five years of experience and 6-plus years of experience were both hitting 83% of their field goal attempts. Ditto from longer distances, with both groups knocking through 67% of their tries from 50 yards or more, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Who are these new-age kickers? They're being tutored in place-kicking at earlier ages than ever before.

"Today's kicker has been a kid comparable to some of these tennis prodigies or golf prodigies, where they've got them in camp as little kids," Philadelphia Eagles special teams coach Bobby April told USA TODAY Sports. "All of these guys now, they grow up going to kicking camps.

"Not long ago, that didn't even exist."

LONGER AND MORE ACCURATE ...

Gary Zauner has privately coached 22 NFL Pro Bowlers and, by his count, eight kickers currently in the league, including Josh Scobee and Sebastian Janikowski. He runs a kicking academy in Arizona, tutoring kickers as young as junior high age. He remembers when high school kickers were the kids who couldn't play a more popular position.

"The kickers are no longer the nerds -- the guys who couldn't play football," he said. "Now soccer is such a popular sport that some of the good athletes went out for soccer and then, all of a sudden, you have football coaches looking to soccer athletes for kickers. The quality of the athlete is much better."

If leg power is any indicator, there's supporting evidence.

Six of the 10 longest field goals in NFL history have come in the past six years, with Blevins student David Akers tying the record of 63 yards on Sept. 9, and Rams rookie Greg Zuerlein converting a 60-yarder against Seattle last Sunday.

"The majority, if not all of the guys in this league, if you put a ball down and let them kick it 60 yards, most every kicker in the league would be able to (make) that," Vinatieri said.

Tucker is certainly no exception.

As a kid, he had the strongest leg on his club soccer teams. His father, a cardiologist, recalls the day Blevins told him Justin had pro potential: "I'll never forget that day," Paul Tucker said. "He said, 'I think Justin can play on Sundays.'"

That was June, 2005. Over the next three years, Justin was a defensive back, receiver and standout kicker at Westlake High School. At the conclusion of practices, head coach Derek Long would stage kicking competitions in a make-until-you-miss format, moving back with each make.

"We'd be out there a while because Justin could make a 62 yarder," Long said.

AND THEY DON'T GET RATTLED

Years later, Justin was kicking in front of Big 12 crowds at the University of Texas, and had no qualms about replacing Pro Bowler Billy Cundiff this season in Baltimore, nailing his first try on the first drive in Week 1. Tucker's level of experience is one thing that sets today's kicker apart, says Randy Brown, a kicking consultant with the Ravens who has taught at kicking camps since the 1980's.

"You now see true freshmen kicking in big time 1A games," Brown said. "You go back 10, 15 years, so much of the freshmen were redshirted, especially a kicker. Now, I'll bet you can look at half of the power conferences and there's a kid kicking at a big-time school at 18 or 19 years old.

"When you're Justin Tucker, you've kicked in front of 100,000 at Texas and you've got to go on the road to Oklahoma. Now the NFL is big, but it's not overwhelming to these kids."

Brown has been a Ravens kicking consultant since 2008, in addition to his day job as mayor of Evesham Township in New Jersey. He quit the youth kicking camp circuit a few years ago, because he preferred the challenge and atmosphere of the pros. But he says he could be making "substantially" more money tutoring kids than he does in the NFL.

"Parents want their kids to specialize," he said. "If you want your son to be a golfer, that's a lot of money for him to go to these schools in Florida."

It costs roughly $500 to attend a three- or four-day kicking camp. Still, Zauner said one family spent more than $15,000 on coaching for their two sons over a five-year period.

"One got a full ride to Stanford and one got a full ride to USC," Zauner said. "So what's that return on your investment?"

For the NFL, such investments could mean a record-breaking kick -- any day now.

Says Vinatieri, "The sky's the limit."