REBUFFING COLORADO Scates' late decision pans out for Aggies By Rusty Burson

Barring something out of the ordinary, chances are Saturday’s Texas A&M-Colorado game will be decided in the fourth quarter. Maybe a big defensive play. Perhaps a clutch catch. Or, as is often the case in a conference showdown between evenly matched teams, the game could possibly be decided by a key play in the kicking game.

If it comes down to that, perhaps the Aggies have the advantage. After all, A&M punter/kicker Cody Scates has already proven he can handle Colorado’s most intense pressure.

Scates, one of the top punters in the Big 12, was once committed to Colorado. It was the result of an intense, 11th-hour sales pitch that would put many telemarketers to shame.

"Colorado called one night at 11 o’clock and said they needed an answer right now because they were running out of scholarships," said Buster Scates, Cody’s father. "Cody was really wanting A&M to make an offer at that time. But A&M hadn’t offered yet, and Cody felt pressured to commit. These kids get put under intense pressure, and it’s very tough on them."

Scates has taken a team-first attitude, helping out as a field goal kicker.

In the end, though, it was Colorado that would be tough out of luck. The Aggies offered Scates a scholarship a couple days later and Scates – with the advice of his high school coach – decided it was one of the times in life that it was OK to go back on his word.

"(Tyler Lee head coach Mike) Owens handled it real well," Buster Scates said. "He told Cody there’s only two or three times in life that you change your mind or go back on your word. One time is when you’re about to be walking down the aisle. You don’t want to marry somebody if you know it’s the wrong decision. Another time is in recruiting."

So, Scates left the Buffs at the Signing Day alter. And, for the most part, the Aggies and Scates have lived happily ever after ever since.

In Scates, the Aggies have found not just a kicking specialist, but an aggressive, relentless and physical tackler. The chiseled Scates has managed to bring the Wrecking Crew mentality to the kicking game, delivering as many drop-dead hits as coffin-corner kicks.

"I love getting out there and mixing up," says the 6-foot, 195-pound Scates of his physical style. "I’d actually love to be playing safety now, but I need to focus on doing what’s best for the team."

Scates’ team-oriented approach has made him especially endearing to his coaches and teammates this year. While Scates wouldn’t mind serving double duty as the Aggies’ punter and safety, he isn’t thrilled to be serving as A&M’s punter and place-kicker.

Nevertheless, he was more than willing to step into that role when – about a week prior to A&M’s season opener against McNeese State – redshirt freshman place-kicker Chris Sims quit the team because of recurring back problems.

Scates, who at the time was nursing a groin injury, never saw it coming. But he immediately knew what it meant.

"(Sims) is one of my good friends, and I didn’t see it," Scates said. "He had had a bad scrimmage, and I could see it got to him, but I knew he could bounce back from that. But then he had the back problems, but I didn’t know it was serious enough to make him quit. I didn’t know what to tell him. It was totally out of the blue. But I knew we didn’t have a long line of place-kickers just waiting in the wings."

Not hardly. A&M coaches desperately tried to find some kickers with experience, and head coach R.C. Slocum even joked that he had been checking the "waiver wire." He managed to find a few potential walk-ons with promise, but none who could immediately beat out the strong-legged Scates.

Nobody was more disappointed about that than Scates. But while it wasn’t a job he wanted, it is a responsibility he has vowed to handle to the best of his ability.

"I would love to focus solely on punting just because it’s a different leg swing and I could take more time in practice to focus on it and get better," Scates said. "But the team is bigger than any individual. I’m happy to help out the team if that’s what they need."

Through the first four games of the season, Scates had varying degrees of success as a place-kicker. He has done an outstanding job handling kickoffs, often sailing balls out of the end zone for touchbacks. And he had also converted 13 of his first 14 extra-point attempts.

Field goals, however, have been something of an adventure in the first third of the season. Scates hit just 2 of his first 7 attempts, including three misses against Wyoming.

"I had to go out there and do the best I could and not worry about who I was following. But I'd love to have a similar impact as (Shane Lechler) had when he was here." –Cody Scates

But even with the disappointments and near misses as a field-goal kicker, Scates hasn’t let it affect other aspects of his game. He is continually improving as a punter and he is just as aggressive as ever as the single safety on special teams coverage.

Case in point: the Wyoming game. While Scates narrowly misfired on his field goal attempts in the thick blue grass/brush in Laramie, he saved a possible touchdown with a tremendous open-field tackle.

"He has a great disposition for a kicker," Slocum said. "He’ll go after you. I love his mentality."

Slocum and Aggies everywhere have also quickly grown to love his punting. Through the first four games this year, Scates averaged better than 41 yards per punt. And he earned freshman All-America honors last year after averaging 40.2 yards per punt.

Scates may never be able to make A&M fans forget about "All-Everything" punter Shane Lechler. But he has done a remarkable job of stepping in and not missing a beat.

And whereas Lechler, the son of a high school coach, had the opportunity to redshirt after having been around the game all of his life, Scates is still a relative newcomer to the sport. In fact, when he stepped onto the field as a true freshman last September at Notre Dame, it was just his 13th game ever to serve as a punter.
Scates grew up primarily as a soccer player. And if not for an injury, he might still be playing futbol instead of football.

"My junior year in soccer, I tore my hip flexor totally from the bone, so I didn’t get to play," Scates said. "Soccer was my big thing, but I had always played baseball as a kid, too. Well, after the injury I was just itching to compete. I knew the baseball coach, and he told me that I could come out if I wanted to and just kind of get out there and compete.

"I decided to go play baseball my junior year. One of the (assistant) football coaches, Ricky Palmer, was one of the baseball coaches also, and told me to come out and give (football) a shot. I ended up coming out and getting the job."

Actually, there was a little more to it than Scates lets on. Palmer, who served as the Tyler Lee kicking coach, had played college football at Southern Miss with a pretty decent punter named Ray Guy.

And the first time Palmer saw the soccer-playing Scates "goofing around" with the football team’s punter, Palmer knew he had to convince Scates to give football a try.

"Cody was not even in football at the time, but he and another boy, who was going to be Lee’s kicker were clowning around one day," said Buster Scates, who played college football at Northeast Louisiana. "This boy would kick the ball to Cody and then Cody would kick it back to him and Cody was kicking it over his head. So Ricky came to him and said, ‘Hey why don’t you come out and play football and kick for us?’

"Cody finally said, ‘Well I’ll come out, but I’ll come out only if I can do something else.’ He was really concerned that he would be totally bored by just being a punter and kicker. So, Palmer finally told him to come out and take care of the kicking and that they would give him an opportunity to do something else."

Scates was an immediate hit on the football field. Palmer, in fact, told head coach Mike Owens that Scates had the strongest leg he had ever seen, including Ray Guy. And he averaged a startling 44.8 yards per punt in 1999, his first year ever as a punter, to earn Parade All-America honors.

Perhaps even more amazingly, though, is what Scates did in addition to punting. He also earned All-District 12-5A honors as a place-kicker and safety.

"When I came in, I was about fifth string as a safety, because I was the new guy," Scates said. "I just slowly moved up and ended up taking this other guy’s position. I guess I surprised some people with the way I played safety, people who thought of me as just a soccer player.

"But I was a pretty aggressive soccer player, too. I played forward and midfield. I actually played all over the field and got a few yellow cards here and there. It was pretty fun, and to me, the transition (to football) was pretty easy."

The transition to college football hasn’t fazed him, either. Facing the daunting task of replacing Lechler – the NCAA’s career punt average champion – Scates debuted at Notre Dame last year and averaged 42.1 yards on eight punts. It was an even better debut performance than Lechler had as a redshirt freshman in his first game against BYU in 1996.

"(Lechler) was a great punter here, and I know some fans were worried about replacing him," Scates said. "But when I stepped out on the field, I never thought about that. I had to go out there and do the best I could and not worry about who I was following. But I’d love to have a similar impact as he had when he was here."

In some ways, Scates is probably already having as big of an impact as Lechler. In fact, in terms of impact tackles, he’s probably more comparable to Patrick Bates, Rich Coady, Michael Jameson, etc.

"It’s usually not a good situation when I end up making a tackle, but honestly, I love it," Scates said. "A lot of kickers have this image of not wanting to be in the middle of contact. Not me. I’m ready and willing to mix it up. It’s a real thrill for me when I lay a big hit on somebody."

It’s thrilling for his parents to be going to Colorado this weekend to see him play. But it’s more thrilling, Buster Scates says, to not have to make that Boulder trip on a regular basis.

"We’re extremely excited about him being at A&M," Buster Scates said. "We thought he was going to go to Colorado. But looking back, (the decision) got down to the point where we were making a list of things he liked more about A&M and things he liked more about Colorado. On the list, there were three or four check marks in Colorado’s favor and about 15 for A&M."

The advantage went to A&M then. And perhaps because of Scates, the advantage may go to the Aggies now.