Jack Willoughby's been a college football fan as long as he can remember — even if he grew up never playing the sport.
"My grandpa played college football and I grew up a big college football fan. I thought there was a chance I could play college soccer at Duke, but I saw an opportunity to sort of make the transition after high school," Willoughby told reporters Monday. "It's one that I always thought I could kick a football well, I could kick a soccer ball well, so I thought, 'Well, why not?'"
Willoughby's grandfather, Larry Black, suited up for the Oregon Ducks many moons ago, leading to his grandson's initial adoration for the game. It didn't initially translate to the sort of response you'd expect from the guy who's earned the starting placekicking job at Ohio State the first two weeks of the 2015 season.
“Honestly, if I wanted to just be a kickoff guy I would have stayed at Duke. It was a situation where I was friends with everybody in the program, loved the program, was receiving a great education, but what I really wanted to do was to have the opportunity to try to kick field goals.”– Jack Willoughby
"At some point a kick's a kick and a 20-yard field goal is not too much different than a PAT, but it's great to be able to help the team out there," Willoughby said of his first career field goal — at any level — in Ohio State's 38-0 win over Hawai'i Saturday.
It was quite a journey before Willoughby to end up in Columbus. Born and raised in Princeton, N.J., he chose to attend Duke University and compete for the kicking job on the football team after years of playing soccer. It worked out, but he was relegated to only kickoff duties for the Blue Devils. That happened right around the time his parents made a drastic lifestyle change.
"My parents moved to Alaska when I was a freshman at Duke," Willoughby said. "I do get to go back, it's obviously a long trip home and with a demanding football schedule it's tough to find time to make the trip and go back. But I love it there."
You probably remember Willoughby from the unfortunate, yet considerable error he committed this summer, when he took Urban Meyer's parking spot on the first day he reported for practice as a newcomer. But he's out to make you remember him for something else: Being Ohio State's starting kicker.
"Honestly, if I wanted to just be a kickoff guy I would have stayed at Duke," Willoughby said, who transferred to Ohio State after receiving a dual degree in economics and statistics at Duke. "It was a situation where I was friends with everybody in the program, loved the program, was receiving a great education, but what I really wanted to do was to have the opportunity to try to kick field goals."
He's under the constant, hawk-like eye of Meyer and in one of the lesser high-profiling position battles at Ohio State at the moment, battling with sophomore Sean Nuernberger for the job. Both have been listed as co-starters on the depth chart in the early portions of the season, but it's only been Willoughby who's contributed in Ohio State's first two games.
"There's no animosity toward Sean. He's a good guy and a good kicker," Willoughby said. "But it's been fun, everyone plays football to compete and at kicker oftentimes you only get to compete with yourself. We don't get to go out and hit people like other positions."
Meyer said recently the starting job is a week-to-week battle, typically determined on Thursdays, or field goal day at practice.
"Whoever kicks best will be the kicker," Meyer said Wednesday. "And they know that, and a lot of pressure on them."
Willoughby nailed a pair of 60-yard field goals late in fall camp, Meyer said, during a drill where there wasn't really a rush coming at him. It was instead intended for the defense to get work at a situation where an opposing team would elect to try a lengthy field goal and come up short, providing a chance for the Buckeyes to make a return.
But Willoughby made them anyway.
"I’ve never seen that before," Meyer said.
Nuernberger didn't miss an extra point in 2014, but connected on just 13-of-20 kicks during the national championship season. Willoughby missed a 43-yard attempt at Virginia Tech on Labor Day, but connected on the 20-yarder against the Rainbow Warriors Saturday. He's also launched a trio of kickoffs out of bounds in Ohio State's first two games, still adjusting to the coffin corner-like approach Meyer and the coaching staff expect from the position.
"We actually did it at Duke as well. But sort of in a less risky way. The aiming spot was maybe a little more to the field and kicks out of bounds were sort of really frowned upon there, more so than here," Willoughby said. "Here we're willing to take more risks and aim a little farther toward the coffin.
"Honestly, it's not the strategy — I just hit three bad kicks that went out of bounds."
We don't yet know if he'll get another chance to be the kicker this week as Ohio State hosts Northern Illinois Saturday afternoon, but Willoughby admits its been a thorough and demanding change of scenery going from Duke to the place that won the first-ever College Football Playoff national championship in January.
In the end, though, the barebones of it is ultimately the same.
"At its core, at its very core, kicking is kicking. Football is football. It's the same game," Willoughby said. "We're out there battling as a team to win, but then clearly here the tradition, the fans, the scale of a lot of what we do is a slightly different level to me. But if you ask guys why they really play the game, you play for your teammates, you play for your coaches and things like that don't really change here or at Duke."
