To think, Brett Thorson is one of our most heralded players and he’s a punter. To make things worse, despite his wit and humor, his status as an immigrant excludes him from gaining any NIL money (that I know of). The good news is, his injury was to his non-kicking leg.
Insert Drew Miller. If you recall, Georgia signed the #1 punter in last year’s recruiting class, and it sounds like he’ll get the long snaps in the CFP.
The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Miller is from Mediapolis, Iowa, and was rated the No. 1 punter in the last recruiting cycle by the 247Sports Composite.
Miller averaged 49.5 yards per punt on 30 punts as a senior with nine downed inside the 10, according to his high school coach. Miller also played quarterback.
“Drew has unbelievable leg talent,” Brian Borrison, his coach, told the Athens Banner-Herald, last December. “His work ethic is second to none. Drew has the ability to punt both traditional and ‘rugby’ style. He has the ability to offer a wide variety of punts depending on field position, etc.“
If all else fails, Drew Bobo has a perfect QBR score after Saturday’s game. Dual threat weapons, for the win!
You tryin’ to cheer me up????
G’Day mate….Cheers!!!
Now if that is true, concerning nil protocol, the barner “bagman” approves of this message, rejoice for the days of fat envelopes, those handshakes for 65 yard punts…the good old days….GO DAWGS!!
That sucks that he can’t get NIL money. Guess we can’t have him taking any jobs from us good ol’ ‘Muricans.
Man, Thor was a damn treat to have! His sense of humor was next level. Not to mention he could kick the shit out of a ball. The 75 yarder on the vawls! Legendary.
All that said, I am looking forward to this Miller kid. We may have something here…
“Miller averaged 49.5 yards per punt on 30 punts as a senior with nine downed inside the 10, according to his high school coach. Miller also played quarterback.”
Don’t forget that last comment by his HS coach.
We should just treat Thorpedo as an illegal immigrant and provide him a bunch of free benefits then.
( Please don’t ban me…lol)
“… his status as an immigrant excludes him from gaining any NIL money…”
Are you sure about that? I doubt that is true; the main point of being here is to get paid for most immigrants. There are a lot of Aussie punters in college ball for it to be a “love of the game” only motivation. If that is true, it needs to be changed.
I’m with you, DDB. I don’t think his immigration status matters unless he’s illegal, which, of course, he’s not.
Maybe immigration status is the wrong term here, but as a student on a visa, he cannot earn NIL money. Same thing happened with the giant basketball player at Perdue who was from Canada. He does have some contracts back in Australia, but can’t partake in the Collective.
Drew Miller is a beast, can’t wait to see him kick the crap out of some punts. Hope he gets his nerves right. Thorson was the coolest cucumber in the bunch.
Can anyone tell me about his backup?.
Our “thuhrd straing holdah” is a BEAST!
This interested me so I did some looking up. Students on an F-1 Visa have employment limitations, but not from the NCAA; rather, it is a restriction on his Visa. He or she can be employed at the school like working in the library, cafeteria or as a TA. That type of employment is not what NIL involves, unless you can consider football (or any athletic sport) an academic major. On the other hand, like many legal matters, it depends. I copied and pasted this paragraph from a 2023 Sports Business Journal:
“In terms of the limited U.S.-based NIL activities potentially available for international student athletes, some schools have advised that such athletes may limit their domestic activities to those that generate passive income, meaning that such activities do not require the international student-athlete’s active participation and exclude payment for what would be considered “services” or “labor for hire” under U.S. labor laws. NIL compensation does not always involve such labor for hire and may involve purely passive activities that do not constitute employment or services for payment; this income is generally considered acceptable, even though this position has not been explicitly endorsed by DHS. Potentially permissible activities include name licensing, group licensing, and billboard advertising, among others.”
Like most things that Kirby has purview of, I believe that they have figured out the ropes. The international football player is scarcer than the international basketball, track, golf and tennis players for example. I believe that UGA has a few of these players, and I’d they also know the rules and have adapted.