Brady Schutt, Mason Lorber and Dalton Godfrey are not fringe players lurking in the background for the University of South Dakota football team. They bleed Coyote red, they help score Coyote points and help win Coyote games. And as much as they have distinctively different jobs within the framework of the team in some ways, they're closely connected nevertheless.
 
Schutt is the punter and holds for field goals. Lorber is the kicker and Godfrey is the long snapper. They're all from Iowa and they all joined the team as walk-ons. Beyond that, they do a whole lot of cooperating.
 
"We definitely have our own little group," said Lorber, a junior in his second season kicking field goals for USD. "Most of us lift together and we room together on the road. We're not a clique exactly, but we definitely know each other pretty well. We're always around each other and we're good friends."
 
On a field goal attempt, they're all out there at the same time. It's not uncommon for a punter to also serve as the holder — backup quarterbacks and punters tend to pick up this role on many college teams — but it is not a duty taken passively.
 
When they all do their jobs correctly, they are indeed a team within a team. Separate responsibilities, yes, but definitely a vital part of any effort to win a football game.
 
Spectators often see only the results of their labors. Was it a good punt? Did that kick go through the uprights? Was the snap good enough to allow time for the other stuff to take place?
 
But together for this trio, it's a process that demands chemistry, coordination and confidence both in themselves and in the other two.
 
Broken down, what goes on for a field goal reads like the plot for an adventure movie. On Saturday when the Coyotes take the field for a Missouri Valley game at Missouri State, extra points and field goals will take up one line in the box score, but that line comes with a lot of moving parts.
 
"For field goals, it's always great because I got Brady back there and I know I can trust him," Godfrey explained. "He's very dependable. He'll give me the signal and I'll snap it back there, hopefully right at him. Then Mason kicks a clean ball. From where I am, I can see when it's a good snap and a good hold and everybody gets their blocks down and that ball is going through the uprights. I look back and I see people giving Mason high-fives. He usually high-fives Brady and me last. It's a great feeling when you see that ball go through the uprights."
 
All three were multi-sport athletes in high school. All spent much of their time just going from one sport to the next without a specific plan in mind for college.
 
Lorber, a New London, Iowa, native, was a five-sport athlete at Danville High School, which has an enrollment of around 200 students grades 7-12. He played football, soccer, basketball, baseball and track, often going from one practice to the next, or one competition to the next, on the same day. It got hectic, Lorber said, and he wonders how his dad was able to make it to all those events, but it was also worth it.
 
"It helped me get better at time management," he said. "I still got decent grades. It made me realize that when I went off to college, I was going to be able to manage my time well."



Schutt was a quarterback and a basketball and soccer player for Maurice-Orange City-Floyd Valley High School. Like the others, he was guaranteed nothing when he became part of the program. He earned the job at USD, though, with consistent work in fall camp after redshirting his first season.
 
He is in Lorber's estimation "the best holder I've ever had" but could point to steady improvement as a punter as a main claim to fame if he wanted. A year ago, he was third in the Missouri Valley with a 42.9-yard average per punt. He is averaging 46.9 yards a punt this season with 10 of more than 50 yards.
 
"Consistency is a big deal with special teams," Schutt said. "I feel like I've been able to see some strides in that since I first started here. The speed and timing is better — the operation level has to be faster at the college level. The more you practice it, the more adjusted you get to the speed of it."
 
Perhaps there are some specialists in college football who don't want to talk about the fact that there are times during a college football practice where there is not a lot to do. Schutt is not one of those people. Yes, he is alert and paying attention at all times. Inevitably, though, there are going to be conversations between the three that many of their teammates would not have time to sustain at a practice.  
 
"We have a very interesting group of specialists," he said. "The conversations can range to just about anywhere on any given day. These conversations are usually pretty out there."
 


Godfrey talks like he's fully capable of embracing those portions of practice.
 
"It's a good group of guys to be hanging out with," he said. "You have the trainers and [David] Milke. And there are visitors to practice sometimes. These are guys who are former players and Coach [Bob] Nielson's friends — just real good dudes. It's fun hearing them tell stories."
 
Godfrey was an all-district linebacker at Cedar Falls High School who did some long snapping back then but never with the intent initially to help it pay for his college education. He was encouraged by several to pursue it, however. He went to a few camps and suddenly was a college prospect. He decided USD was for him. The fact that most people he sees around campus don't know what he does for the football team is precisely the way he wants to keep it.
 
"I hope they have no clue who I am or what I do on the team," he said, laughing. "That's kind of the goal. As long as they don't know my name I'm usually doing pretty well."
 
Dalton who? So far, so good on that count.