EMORY, Va. - Some in the world of college football consider special teams to be the least-vital aspect of the game. The Emory & Henry College Football Team is not in that camp. Head Coach Curt Newsome and his staff understand that games are won on Saturday afternoon thanks to success on offense, defense and special teams.

This year, the specialist unit was a big asset for the Wasps. The kicking game was nearly flawless, consistently providing a scoring threat from inside 50 yards while the punting game was dependable to pin the opposing offense deep in its own territory. 

Freshman Skyler Simcox was named First Team All-ODAC in his first season as a Wasp.  He is the first kicker at E&H to be named to the first team since 2008.  Simcox led the team in points with 65 and hit the most field goals in the ODAC with nine.  Simcox nailed two 48-yard field goals on the season.  Those two field goals came in a win at East Tennessee State University in which Simcox was named ODAC Offensive Player of the Week.  Of his nine field goals made, four of them were 40 yards or more.

Senior punter Chris Bingham did an outstanding job at pinning opposing offenses inside of their 20 yard line. Bingham kept 20 punts inside the 20 for the Wasps, which was the highest in the ODAC.  He also had the highest percentage of his punts land inside the 20 yard line as well. Bingham averaged 39.1 yards per punt and had a long of 59 yards at Shenandoah.

Simcox becomes yet another stellar placekicker for Emory & Henry following in the footsteps of Matt Turchin '13, Luke Hawk '09, both of whom were also named to the All-ODAC Teams. Bingham continued a long line of successful punters for the Wasps including Zach Nedzbala '15, T.J. Frazier '12 and Tim Whaley dating back to the 2007 season.

The Success of the kickers and punters is only compounded by the involvement of kicking coach Doug Blevins, who in his 10 years with the Wasps, has used his wealth of knowledge to make Emory & Henry a widely-known leader in the kicking game. Blevins served on the coaching staff of the NFL's Miami Dolphins for six years and has provided instruction to many other kickers and punters who have played at the professional and collegiate level.

Emory & Henry's kickoff return game was also one of the tops in the ODAC, averaging over 22 yards per return for an average drive start at the 27 yard line. Junior Tre'von Lightfoot and freshman Xavier Jones handled the return duties for the Wasps for the majority of the year, as Lightfoot averaged 30.1 yards on eight returns and Jones averaged 21.7 yards on a team-leading 21 returns.

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