He was the oldest player on the team last year, is the oldest player on the team now and will be again next year.
On Tuesday, James Madison senior punter Harry O’Kelly said he plans to take the NCAA up on its offer and stay for an extra season with the Dukes.
In August, the NCAA approved a blanket waiver for all 2020 fall sports athletes to retain a year of eligibility because of the coronavirus pandemic.
So O’Kelly will punt for the team this coming spring when JMU plays its postponed, abbreviated season and then again in fall of 2021.
“I’ll be back,” O’Kelly, 24, said. “I’ll be back next fall. I feel like age is just a number and that I love it here. And if I can get more of an education as well while doing it, just kicking balls on the weekends, that’s a pretty good gig.”
And he’ll return to the program along with senior place kicker Ethan Ratke, who also said Tuesday he wants to continue his Dukes career further, too.
Ratke already holds JMU all-time records for field goals (58) and scoring (319 points).
“I never wanted to play anywhere else,” Ratke said. “I wanted to finish my career here no matter what and part of it was just adapting to the idea that I’d be staying here much longer than I was planning on. Since my sophomore year, I’d been planning on graduating this December, which I still will, and being done after that, but I will definitely be back for the spring and the fall after that.”
The pair of specialists give the Dukes stability at kicker and punter through 2021, which sets up to be the fourth straight campaign Ratke and O’Kelly would be returning starters in at their respective positions.
After redshirting in 2016, Ratke took over the full-time kicking responsibilities the following season and converted the most memorable field goal in JMU history when he knocked a 46-yarder through the uprights as time expired against Weber State to send the Dukes onto the FCS national semifinals.
O’Kelly, an Australian, came to JMU in 2017 and since then has used both his rugby-style punting and the traditional style to boost the Dukes’ special teams. O’Kelly landed 42 percent his punts inside the opponent’s 20-yard line last year.
O’Kelly, Ratke and senior long snapper Kyle Davis are roommates, and O’Kelly said their tight bond has allowed JMU’s special teams to be largely successful.
“We spend the whole practice together on the sideline watching,” O’Kelly said with a laugh, “and then we go home and talk about what we watched in practice. That pretty much sums up our day, sitting on the bikes, but it’s a good bond and it’s nice to have us all together still.”
Both O’Kelly and Ratke said even though they’ve accomplished plenty to this point in their time with the Dukes, they each have a primary objective in mind.
“My goal is to win a national championship,” O’Kelly said.
Said Ratke: “I think what I’ve always wanted to do is to just put the team in the best position possible to win.”
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- O’Kelly said during the pandemic he has not been able to go back home to Australia. He was supposed to leave Harrisonburg in May, but flights were canceled, so he ended up staying in town. He said his younger brother, Seamus O’Kelly, a punter at Texas State, came to JMU and stayed with him.
- O’Kelly said this fall the punt team has tried to get all of its younger players accustomed to the scheme. He said the group has quite a bit of turnover from last year’s unit.
- Davis said he ended up at JMU because of former Dukes defensive coordinator Bob Trott. Davis said Trott initially began recruiting him when Trott was in the same role at the University of Richmond. But when Trott joined former JMU coach Mike Houston’s staff, according to Davis, started recruiting Davis to JMU.
- JMU is in its final week of fall practice. The Dukes will conclude their fall drills on Saturday with a scrimmage.
- During the Dukes’ special teams work, running back Jawon Hamilton and running back/inside receiver Solomon Vanhorse were returning kicks.
- In individual drills, JMU’s defense worked extensively on forcing fumbles. The defense was split into three groups that rotated through three different stations. The three stations were strip-sacking the opposing quarterback, chasing a ball-carrier from behind to knock the ball free and stripping the ball from a down hill runner. Position coaches led each station while Dukes defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman was roving from station to station to check in on each group. In 2019, JMU was 11th nationally with 26 turnovers forced – 17 interceptions and nine fumble recoveries.
- James Madison’s non-conference home games against Morehead State on Feb. 20 and Robert Morris on Feb. 27 will both kick off at noon, according to the team’s sports information director Chris Brooks. The meeting with Morehead State will mark the Dukes’ first noon home game since Nov. 21, 2015 when they topped Villanova, 38-29, to win a share of the Colonial Athletic Association title.
