Georgia will get a kick out of this super recruit

He started out like most kickers -- on the soccer team. While he was a freshman at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Walsh was convinced by the team's kicker at the time, Brett Swenson, to join the football team.

"He just took me out to the field one day and I was going to shag balls for him and kick a few and he thought I was pretty decent," Walsh said.

Walsh trained all summer for a chance to make the junior varsity team and then fate stepped in.

Swenson transferred to a local rival high school, allowing Walsh to end up as the starting kicker on the varsity squad as a sophomore.

Gibbons coach Mike Morrill knew from the start there was something special about his new kicker.

"The ball made a different sound when he kicked it, he had a very live leg," Morrill said. "He wasn't as strong as he is now, but you could just tell by the sound of the ball, he had the right punch."

Walsh continued to get better and stronger in the offseason with the help of personal trainer Nick Gancitano and well-known kicking instructor Chris Sailer.

Gancitano, who played at Penn State in the early 1980s and is a well-known tutor in the South Florida kicking community, taught Walsh privately, while Sailer, who was an All-American at UCLA, runs more than 30 kicking camps around the country for the best high school players in the nation.

"We see 500-750 kids per year in each recruiting class and he's phenomenal," Sailer said. "He's got everything it takes to be an outstanding I-A kicker. He's strong, he's got great technique and a great head on his shoulders.

"Lots of kids have the potential, the leg strength and the technique, but very few of them can take that and be consistent in games. He's got the mental side of it too, which is huge for him. He's competitive, confident and got the exact personality you look for in a guy that you know is going to be great in front of 110,000 people in a huge pressure situation."

Walsh's hard work quickly paid off, getting recruited during his junior year by West Virginia and California. Georgia actually didn't enter the picture until later.

"Once Georgia came in, they were one of the tops on my list," Walsh said. "Georgia was always high on the list because I knew what kind of coach Richt was, good kicking school, good academics, good location. Without even seeing it, it had the right stuff on paper."

And after a visit to Athens with his family, the choice was simple.

"When I was up there, we ran down a list of other schools and how they compared," Walsh added. "And this was it; this is where we want to be."

Done.

Georgia had found its kicker and Walsh's senior season in high school hadn't even started yet.

So while Georgia was fighting for an SEC title and a BCS bowl bid, Walsh was padding his resume, hitting 14 field goals, including seven of at least 40 yards, while earning All-State and USA Today All-American honors. He was also selected to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

But playing at Sanford Stadium in front of 90,000 against Tennessee is going to be a lot different than playing a game on Friday night in front of 500 classmates.

"I don't really think that will have an affect on me," Walsh said. "I think I've been trained well enough where the fans and the crowd really doesn't influence me."

So when the preseason hype begins for Georgia and players like Matthew Stafford, Knowshown Moreno and most of the returning defenders have stories written about them and are nominated for preseason awards, remember the freshman kicker from Fort Lauderdale that Richt signed as potentially the last piece of a championship puzzle.

"If I can help my team be the best they can be with all the rankings then I will have succeeded," Walsh said.