Veteran Kicker Looking to Increase Impact

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The transition from underclassman to upperclassman can occur in a flash, and kicker Will Bettridge is still getting used to his new status on the University of Virginia football team.

It seems like only yesterday, Bettridge said, “that I was a first-year playing, and I’m going into my third year now.”

As a freshman in 2022, Bettridge made his debut in UVA’s fourth game. He handled field goals and extra points for the rest of the season and finished with solid but unspectacular numbers: 7 for 10 on field goals and 12 for 14 on PATs.

He took a step forward last season, when he was 18 for 21 on field goals and 31 for 31 on extra points.

“I was happy with it,” Bettridge said of his 2023 performance, “but I know I could have done a lot better. I missed an easy one to start the season against Tennessee, so wish I had that one back, but everything happened for a reason. I think missing that one, that kind of got my mindset right. I needed to work harder, and I think that pushed me into the second half of the season, where I kind of dialed things up and turned it on. But I think I have a lot to improve on. I’ve added some distance in the offseason.”

Not coincidentally, perhaps, Bettridge also has added some muscle. He credits a healthy diet, as well as workouts with Austin Kaigler, one of the football team’s assistant strength and conditioning coaches. At 5-foot-10, Bettridge is no giant, but he’s gained about seven pounds in the offseason and now weighs 180.

In 2023, he was 5 for 6 on field goals from 20 to 29 yards; 8 for 8 from 30 to 39; and 5 for 7 from 40 to 49. His longest field goal last season was a 46-yarder in UVA’s Nov. 18 win over Duke at Scott Stadium. This year, Bettridge said, “I’m definitely looking at about 53 [yards] and in.”

Special teams analyst Drew Meyer, who was an All-Big Ten punter for Wisconsin, oversees the Cavaliers’ specialists. Bettridge has committed himself to extending his range on field goals, Meyer said, “and we’ve seen some of the results already. What I’ve been really pleased with is he hasn’t sacrificed any of his accuracy on the short kicks. He’s just as serious about those kicks while trying to expand. He’s not focusing on, ‘Let me go out and just hit the long ball.’ There’s some guys that want to increase their range, and they just line up [50-yarders] and start kicking from there a bunch. Will’s been very consistent still on making the kicks that he has to make 100 percent of the time and then increasing the percentage on the kicks that we want him to make and hope for him to make.”

A graduate of Gulliver Prep in Miami, Bettridge started the 2023 season on an inauspicious note. On the Wahoos’ second possession in the opener against Tennessee, he missed a 28-yarder.

“He owned that and he grew from that,” Meyer said.

Bettridge made his next two field-goal attempts against the Volunteers, and he extended his streak to 12 in a row before missing from 48 yards against Georgia Tech on Nov. 4.

“I was really proud of how he responded to that first game,” Meyer said, “and how he continued to grow as the season went on and came through for our team in some big moments and some big games.”

Bettridge started slowly in training camp this month, too, missing three of his first four field-goal attempts. Evaluating a kicker “is very easy with the numbers,” Bettridge said. “Whether it was a bad kick or a good kick, it either went in or it didn’t. So I’m very transparent.”

At the end of an early practice, head coach Tony Elliott made clear that he expected more from his kickers, and “I went back to the drawing board,” Bettridge said. “I’ve definitely turned it up a notch.”

Virginia opens the season Aug. 31 against Richmond at Scott Stadium.

Bettridge is working with a new long-snapper (Payton Bunch) and a new holder (Daniel Sparks) this year, and the group has little experience together. Bunch, a transfer from Coastal Carolina, didn’t arrive on Grounds until the 2023-24 school year ended, but his extra sessions with Bettridge and Sparks are paying dividends.

“We’re nailing kicks,” Bettridge said, “and we’re not only making them, we’re smoking them and have a lot of room to spare. So that’s just going to continue into the season. I got the bad kicks out of my way and now we’re just making the most of every opportunity.”

Sparks, an All-ACC candidate at punter, is expected to handle kickoffs for the Cavaliers this fall. Bettridge’s backup on field goals and extra points will be junior Vadin Bruot or true freshman Max Prozny.

“We’re kind of alternating right now to see who will be the guy to step up in that role for us,” Meyer said. “They’re both extremely capable guys and have good legs on them. It’s been fun to see Max come in as a young guy and challenge for that job. He’s got an explosive leg, and it’s just the consistency factor for him and really dialing in there. When he connects, he really connects. And then Vadin’s got a little more veteran presence. He’s been in the program. He understands what’s going on, the expectations, and he’s connected on some great kicks for us.”

Jared Rayman, now a graduate assistant on Elliott’s staff, was Bettridge’s holder last season, but Sparks practiced holds regularly as well, and he’s impressed Meyer in camp.

“I’m excited for Sparks to be working with Will,” Meyer said. “We get so much time as specialists together to work that chemistry, work that bond, work that trust, because it’s an interesting dynamic, an interesting relationship. Sometimes guys go out for a big kick and nobody wants to talk to them. The holder’s the last guy that speaks to him. So as a holder you have a unique role there of understanding who your kicker is, what they need, what’s going to help them have success. If for some reason they’re a little anxious or something, you’re the last guy to help them calm them down and get them focused. And so Sparks being there has been great for Will, and Payton’s done a great job, too, coming in here and really snapping lights-out for us.”

Under a new rule, analysts such as Meyer are now allowed on the field to coach during practices. Meyer, who’s in his seventh season on Virginia’s staff, has “definitely helped us out a lot with technique stuff in ways that he couldn’t coach us before,” Bettridge said. “It’s definitely elevated our game. Sparks and I, we’ve definitely taken our game to another level.”

Working with Bettridge has been a pleasure, said Meyer, who noted the kicker’s generosity. Bettridge recently used some of the money he receives from an NIL deal to give new Nike shoes to his fellow specialists.

“It’s really cool,” Meyer said. “For someone to go out of their way, especially in the day and age we live in, and use their own resources that they’ve put time and money and effort into, on their teammates is pretty special.”

Bettridge is majoring in foreign affairs, with a minor in entrepreneurship, and he’s loved his time at UVA. He met his girlfriend at the University, and “school is great,” he said. “I’m definitely learning a lot with foreign affairs and doing a lot with politics. UVA is definitely a great place for that, with Washington, D.C., close.”

After wearing jersey No. 17 as a freshman, Bettridge switched to No. 41 last season to honor the memory of D’Sean Perry, his close friend and former teammate. Perry, who preceded Bettridge at Gulliver Prep, was one of three UVA football  players shot and killed in November 2022, along with Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler, after returning to Grounds from a class field trip.

Davis, Chandler and Perry wore Nos. 1, 15 and 41, respectively.

Bettridge changed numbers with the blessing of Perry’s parents, Happy and Sean, and he still talks regularly with Perry’s mother.

“It just means so much to always have her in my corner,” Bettridge said. “We have tough conversations, and I know she’s going to be there, and she knows more than anyone what I’m going through and how I’ve gotten through it.”

Many of the current Cavaliers were not in Charlottesville during the 2022 season and so never met the shooting victims. But Davis, Chandler and Perry have been memorialized in a display inside the new Molly and Robert Hardie Football Operations Center, and UVA’s veterans are determined that their fallen teammates won’t be forgotten.

“It’s a great conversation to have,” Bettridge said. “If a first-year, second-year or transfer kid would ask me about D’Sean or Devin or Lavel, it’s one of the greatest things that I can do, to just speak about them, speak about my relationship with them. There’s a lot of new guys [on the team], and I feel like a lot of them already know the importance of those three to this program, and to me specifically. Their legacy is being held up great, and I think that’s just going to continue to just get better and grow year after year.”

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