Ohio State's 2015 senior class has a chance to win its 50th game over a four-year period New Year's Day in the Fiesta Bowl against Notre Dame. Before kickoff in their final collegiate game, Eleven Warriors will take a brief look back at each player's time in Columbus.
WHERE HE'S FROM
Jack Willoughby isn't your normal college student. He grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was an All-State soccer player, before walking on to the Duke University football team as a freshman. He then beat out All-ACC placekicker and Blue Devil kicker Ross Martin for the kickoff specialist job near the end of the 2013 season.
Shortly thereafter, Willoughby's parents moved to Juneau, Alaska, more than 2,500 miles from Columbus.
"I love it there," Willoughby said in September. "It's a beautiful place, lot to do, lot of hiking, a lot of fishing, boating, things like that."
The kickoff job was solely his the following season, but then had one more year of collegiate eligibility after graduating from Duke with a dual degree in economics and statistics. He spoke with Urban Meyer on his way to watch the Duke men's basketball team play in the Final Four this past April, and elected to transfer to Ohio State with the hope of competing for the starting placekicker job with Sean Nuernberger.
"I wanted to test my luck and see if I could kick field goals at the college level," Willoughby said. "I then looked around and tried to find a team that would play at the highest level and had a need for someone like me. So I sent out some feelers and Ohio State was a great fit, a great football program and I get to receive a good education in one of the coolest cities in the country."
TOP MOMENTS
Willoughby won the starting kicking job out of Ohio State fall camp, even though he and Nuernberger were listed as co-starters on the depth chart for the first two months of the season. He separated himself on the depth chart briefly, but lost the job to Nuernberger in the Illinois game. The Buckeye kicking game has been in constant flux all season, but its been Nuernberger's job since then.
"Having a guy to push me and I can push him back, I think we both have gotten better as a result and it's been a fun competition," Willoughby said.
While handling the kickoff duties all season long, Willoughby made his first career field goal—at any level—in Ohio State's 38-0 win over Hawai'i Sept. 12, a 20-yard attempt.
"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," he said.
Willoughby is 7-for-11 on field goal attempts this season and made all 45 of his extra point attempts before yielding to Nuernberger. He also has 25 touchbacks and seemed to nail down the coffin corner directive from Meyer on kickoffs. Of the five he booted out of bounds in 2015, three came in the first two games of the season.
"Here we're willing to take more risks and aim a little farther toward the coffin," Willoughby said. "Honestly, it's not the strategy — I just hit three bad kicks that went out of bounds."
OVERARCHING CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROGRAM
Willoughby came to Ohio State looking for a chance to be a placekicker on the collegiate level. He received that exact opportunity.
"I think Ohio State looked at me because of the role I could fill on kickoff, but for me, it was about field goal as well," Willoughby said.
He will leave Ohio State contributing to 11 victories, with a chance at a 12th coming in the Fiesta Bowl against Notre Dame. That game is only shot at winning a championship as a member of the Buckeyes, but he did his best to sure up a position that has been inconsistent since Meyer took over at Ohio State.
Not bad for someone who had never made a field goal in a game in his entire life. Meyer mentioned a few times during fall camp how Willoughby made a pair of 60-yard field goal attempts back-to-back in practice where the drill was intended for the defense to practice situations where an opponent would come up short on a long try.
"I've never seen that before," Meyer said.
Plus, we'll always have this.
WHERE HE'S HEADED
Willoughby isn't headed for a professional football career, but with degrees from Duke in economics and statistics—as well as the graduate work he did this year at Ohio State—he's a pretty safe bet to make a considerable dent in society.
He also got to attend two of the country's most notable universities and play college football for a national championship-winning coach all while achieving Academic All-American status. Not a bad way to do college.
MORE WILLOUGHBY
- That frightful mistake he made in June, when he parked in Urban Meyer's spot
- Jack Willoughby on adjusting to life at Ohio State
- Jack Willoughby, Jacoby Boren Named Academic All-Americans
- Jack Willoughby Loses Black Stripe, Becomes Official Member of Football Team
