Wow. I was hoping he'd come back.....but good for him if he makes it in the NFL. It's tough making NFL rosters as a kicker. The Auburn kicker is 1st team All-SEC and would likely be the top K in the draft class. Hopefully there will be several teams needing a kicker.
We're supposed to get a commit from Judd Davis' son, Connor Davis....and he's supposed to be very good. This is a 2016 article:
Ex-Gator kicker’s son ranked No. 1 high school placekicker
http://www.gainesville.com/sports/20160922/ex-gator-kickers-son-ranked-no-1-high-school-placekicker
Connor Davis says he doesn’t feel any added pressure being the son of a former Florida placekicker.
At least he says that, but maybe being Judd Davis’ son, and having a dad who played big-time college football and in the NFL is the reason why the Forest junior is currently the No. 1 kicker in the nation.
Davis nailed three field goals and six extra points to help lead the undefeated Forest Wildcats to a 51-6 win over Leesburg last Friday.
The productive night against the District 6A-5 foe kept him at 100 percent on both field goals and extra points this season, garnering him the top spot in the country according to Maxpreps.com. After Friday, Davis is 8-for-8 in field goals and 9-for-9 in extra points, putting him in the top spot ahead of Thomas Rossi (Highland, Utah, Lone Peak H.S.) and Jake Lane (Montgomery, Ala., Park Crossing H.S.). The next-best kicker in the state is Orlando Lake Highland Prep’s Brandon A. Nguyen, who comes in at No. 14 in the Maxpreps list.
Judd Davis graduated from Forest in 1990 and went on to kick for the Gators from 1991-94. He was initially a walk-on player and saw no game action until his 1992 sophomore season. During his three-season college career, Judd Davis set or tied eight school records and three SEC records. In 1993, Judd Davis won the Lou Groza Award which recognizes the best placekicker in college football. He signed with the Seattle Seahawks in 1995 but didn’t make the final roster after being one of the last players cut before the season began.
“I would say that 95 percent of my coaching comes from my dad directly,” Davis said. “We work on being consistent in all three facets, field goals, punts, and kickoffs.”
Davis’ pedigree as a kicker obviously is very noticeable one generation prior, but even before Judd, kicking field goals and just football in general, was in the Davis family bloodline.
Connor’s great grandfather, the late M.M. “Smackum” Davis, was a kicker and punter for the former Ocala High football team in the late 1920′s. Connor’s grandfather, Ben Davis, was the Ocala High football team’s manager during his high school years.
The Wildcats (3-0, 1-0 in District 6A-5) host Gainesville Eastside (0-3) tonight and will be looking to go 4-0 for the first time since 2002 when they reeled off eight straight wins to begin the year.
And speaking of winning streaks, Davis was quick to point out how the FHS Class of 2018 is yet to lose a game. “My holder, (junior starting quarterback) Grant Grodi and my long-snapper (junior defensive lineman) Jared Grow, are all part of a group who haven’t lost a game yet,” Davis said. “Our freshman team was undefeated and last year’s JV team was undefeated as well.”
Having eight field goals in just three games is virtually unheard of these days at the high school level. One of the main reasons is the confidence that FHS head coach Skip Austin has in his junior placekicker.
“If it is fourth down, you know, fourth and whatever, he trusts me enough to go out there and put a few points on the board,” Davis said.