The Buffaloes added some depth within the placekicker room today, as Joshua Bryan, ranked as the No. 1 player in the country at his position by Chris Sailer Kicking, verbally committed to Colorado on Monday afternoon.
Bryan, a 6-foot-0, 179-pound prospect from Chatsworth (Sierra Vista) California, held offers from Army, Navy and Air Force.
The Buffaloes offered him on July 22, shortly before Cameron Little, a fellow 2021 kicker target, committed to Arkansas.
Despite less than two weeks passing from the time CU offered to when Bryan pulled the trigger and committed, he was able to get enough of a feel for Colorado and what the Buffs have to offer in order to feel comfortable doing so.
"When (the offer) did come and it was a full ride — that’s obviously huge and pretty amazing for a kicker — after getting offered, I wanted to make a trip down to Colorado," Bryan said. "This past weekend, my dad and younger brother went down to see campus. It’s still a (NCAA recruiting) dead period, so I couldn’t get in contact with the coaches or anything, but just by seeing the campus, I was hoping to get a home environment and a good feeling and I really did. I loved everything about campus."
"After I saw the campus, I went and had lunch with my grandma and uncle; they live in Colorado Springs, so that’s another (factor), having family down there.”
Bryan is a protege of Chris Sailer, the former All-American kicker at UCLA who went on to form Chris Sailer Kicking in 1999 while still early into his own professional career.
For over 20 years, Sailer has been an authority for college coaches looking to find the nation's best specialists and Bryan has attended his camps since middle school.
“I’ve worked with Chris Sailer since seventh grade and he’s been unbelievable to me, the help that he’s given me," Bryan said. "His camps, whether regional or national, are very competitive. Colleges see these camps, they know Chris Sailer and what he’s done for the past 20 years or so, he has connections and he’s been able to get me with coaches that I’ve been able to talk to. He guided me through the whole process and I’ve been so grateful to have him help me through this whole process.”
Among Class of 2021 recruits, Bryan was ranked by Sailer as the No. 1 kicker in the country.
In his high school career at Sierra Canyon, the longest in-game field goal Bryan has converted was a 47-yarder. However, while at Sailer's camp, he once hit a field goal from 67 yards, although, as he admitted, kicking a field goal in a game and doing so for fun or in a practice setting are two very different animals.
Bryan also punts and while he'd be willing to do so at CU, he and Reinert have yet to discuss the feasibility of that.
“We haven’t really gone over that," he said. "I know I’ll be doing kickoff and field goals. I can punt and if (Colorado) needs me to punt, I can punt, but we haven’t gone over specifics with that yet.”
While he's built up a good relationship with Reinert, Bryan has also taken notice of Karl Dorrell and the direction he's leading the rest of Colorado's first-year staff.
"With the program itself, I feel like I could become really successful playing for Colorado," Bryan said. "Coach Reinert is a great special teams coach and the whole coaching staff with coach Dorrell, I think it’s going to only go uphill from here.”
In late June, California announced that the fall 2020 prep football season would be postponed until the spring. While that will no doubt be peculiar for Bryan and all of the state's high school football players, Bryan will look to continue polishing his game up before he gets to CU.
"Coach Reinert has already communicated with me about how he's going to work with me about how the game plan should be after high school: get a little bit of rest but then ramp it back up for the college season. But I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing — working with my kicking coach, working on consistency, technique and all that stuff."
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