Szymanski to Enroll at Texas A&M in the Fall
Jul 24, 2006 | Football
July 24, 2006
Matt Szymanski, one of the nation?™s top kickers, will graduate early from A&M Consolidated High School in College Station and will enroll at Texas A&M University this fall, Aggie football coach Dennis Franchione announced today.
?We are very excited about Matt joining our team this fall,? Coach Fran said. ?He has tremendous leg strength in all phases of kicking and is very accurate as a placekicker. He has the ability to come in and compete for a starting position. I believe he is the second football player to graduate a full year early and sign with a Division I-A football program.?
Quarterback John David Booty graduated a year early from Shreveport, Louisiana?™s Evangel Christian High School in the summer of 2003 before enrolling at USC. He is listed as a redshirt junior on the Trojans?™ 2006 roster.
?Matt committed to us before the start of his junior year and his family approached Coach (Mark) Tommerdahl this summer about the possibility of graduating early,? Coach Fran said.
?As I entered high school, I thought I would graduate in December of my senior year and enroll in college the next spring,? Szymanski said. ?After competing in many kicking camps, having a successful junior year and talking things over with my family, I thought I could go ahead and make the jump to college and I look forward to the challenges at the next level.?
In the summers of 2004 and 2005, Szymanski won kicking camps at Texas A&M, LSU, Ohio State, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, California, Purdue and Mississippi State. He won the field goal portion of the 2004 Lone Star Kicking Camp and finished third in the kickoff competition prior to his sophomore season.
At 6-2, 195 pounds, Szymanski is rated the #1 Kicker/Punter in the Nation by Chris Sailer Kicking and he has worked with former Dallas Cowboys placekicker Chris Boniol.
?Matt is one of the best to come along in years,? Sailer said. ?He is simply the full package. He can kick field goals, kickoff, and punt at the highest level. He is the #1 combination player in the Class of 2007. Texas A&M truly has something special.?
?Matt has a great makeup to be a winner,? Chris Boniol, former Dallas Cowboys kicker (1994-96) and is a six-year NFL veteran with a career field goal percentage of 78.5. ?He has an outstanding personality. He is confident in his abilities, and yet he is humble. He loves a challenge and I think he has a great approach to kicking. Go out and get the job done, let your kicks speak for themselves.?
Szymanski, born Aug. 13, 1988 in College Station, was an All-State placekicker as a junior helping the A&M Consolidated Tigers to an 11-3 record and the Class 5A state semi-finals in 2005. He was named ?Best Kicker? in 2005 by 5ATexasFootball.com and awarded the 2005 Marshall Young Trophy as the outstanding kicker in Texas by TexasHSFootball.com. He was rated among the state?™s 2007 Top 100 recruits by Rivals.com.
The soccer-style kicker did not use a kicking tee and was 19-of-26 in field goals with a career long of 61 yards and was a perfect 33-of-33 in PATs. Five of his field goal misses came from 45 yards or longer. Of his 65 kickoffs, 90 percent went into the end zone and less than 20 percent were returned. In punting, he averaged 39 yards per kick with a long of 53 yards. He dropped 13 kicks inside the opponent?™s 20-yard line and due to his outstanding hang time, the long punt return against him was nine yards.
Szymanski?™s 61-yard field goal off of the ground against Euless Trinity (Dec. 3, 2005) in the state semi-finals came just before halftime and cut the Trinity lead to 7-3. The kick is believed to be the longest in national high school records without the aid of a kicking tee. It is the longest in Class 5A state playoff history and the fifth-longest all-time in Texas High School history.
His 19 field goals in a season is tops all-time in Texas Class 5A football and is among the Top 10 all-time with the national record set at 22 field goals.
Szymanski was on the Consolidated squad in 2004 and handled kickoffs. He also ran track competing in the 400 meters and the 4X400 relay for Consolidated.
A&M Consolidated is projected to be highly ranked in Class 5A Texas football in 2006.
?I appreciate what Coach (Jim) Slaughter has done to help me and I know my teammates at Consol will have a great year,? Szymanski said. ?I am confident someone will step forward and fill my shoes.?
Growing up, the young Szymanski was noted as an excellent soccer player in the Bryan-College Station community as well as competing in Houston. On all of the teams, he was the youngest on the squad so competing against older individuals is nothing new.
His first taste of football came his seventh grade year when the coaches approached him to play safety and running back, as well as handle some kicking duties.
Szymanski is the son of Maria and Dr. David Szymanski. His mother has taught kindergarten at Bonham Elementary in Bryan for the past 10 years. His father is currently the JCPenney Chair of Retailing Studies in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M. He is the former Director for the Center of Retailing Studies at A&M. He was named a Mays College Faculty Research Fellow in 1993 and again in 2002, and was honored in 1994 with the Association of Former Students?™ Distinguished Award in Teaching for the Mays Business School. In 1995, he received the Association of Former Students?™ Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching for Texas A&M University, the highest honor awarded to faculty at Texas A&M.
The younger Szymanski grew up in the shadow of Kyle Field. He has played in two high school games in the stadium as part of the ?Crosstown Showdown? between Bryan and A&M Consolidated High Schools. He was responsible for all of the points in Consolidated?™s 9-6 victory over Bryan in 2005. He connected on field goals of 31, 47 and 52 yards. He was 2-for-2 in extra points in the 2004 contest.
?I am excited to be a part of the Aggie football team,? Szymanski said. ?This is a great opportunity for me to grow and develop in many ways. I really feel like a part of a family here.
Szymanski was courted by schools such as Tennessee, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Nebraska, LSU, California and Mississippi State.
Szymanski follows in the Aggie footsteps of another former A&M Consolidated High School placekicker, Kyle Bryant (1994-97). Bryant left A&M as the all-time record holder in career field goals (60), extra points (145) and is the all-time leading scorer with 325 points. Bryant was 60-of-85 (.706) in field goals and 145-of-152 in PATs. His long field goal was a 61-yard effort against Southern Mississippi.
