Saskatchewan Roughriders punter Adam Korsak has a 90-yarder and a 120-yarder on his impressive resume.
The 90-yarder — the longest punt in the Canadian Football League since 2016 — was recorded on June 24 against the host Calgary Stampeders.
The 120-yarder? He breezily covered that distance on a hole-in-one, which was celebrated in August at the Aspen Links Country Club.
Korsak has also aced every test during his first season of professional football, emerging as one of the CFL’s top rookies after being selected third overall in the 2023 Global Draft.
“When we drafted him, one of his coaches described him as ‘the Doug Flutie of punting’ up here,” Roughriders Head Coach Craig Dickenson says. “He thinks he’ll be that good.
“That’s high praise. I’m not sure I put him in Doug’s category, because Doug was a special dude, but Adam has a lot of shots in the bag.
“He has the ability to move the returners around and pressure doesn’t faze him. He tends to be at his best when his best is needed.
“He’s a great holder, a great teammate, and I couldn’t be happier to be coaching him. He has been outstanding.”
That assessment is shared by Brett Lauther, for whom Korsak does the holding.
“Honestly, he’s the best I’ve ever seen up here, for what he can do with the ball in his hands,” the fifth-year Roughriders placekicker says. “I’ve had a lot of good ones, and it’s no disrespect to any of those guys, but with the age he’s at and what he can do, he could be one of the best players to play up here for a long time, especially at the punting position.”
It is a position he could very well redefine, considering the array of punts in his repertoire.
“He’s like a good golfer — and he is a good golfer, by the way,” Dickenson says. “He can hit all the shots.
“He’s got the driver if you need it. He can hit the wedge if you need something high and short. He has a knockdown shot. He can move it left to right.
“The guy just has a ton of shots in the bag, and I think most of the Australians do, because they grow up kicking the football, just like Canadians grow up handling a hockey stick or an American grows up throwing a ball.
“He’s a good one — and I think he’s a real weapon.”
As the numbers will confirm.
Entering the Roughriders’ regular-season finale — Saturday’s collision with the Toronto Argonauts (2 p.m., Mosaic Stadium) — Korsak leads the league in yards per punt (47.8).
If that average holds up, it will be the third-best in Roughriders history, behind Jon Ryan (48.8 in 2019) and Ken Clark (47.4 in 1983).
The aforementioned 90-yard punt is the fourth-longest by a Roughrider. Before Korsak, the last member of the Green and White to reach or exceed 90 yards was Chris Milo, who launched a CFL-record-tying 108-yarder against the visiting Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Oct. 29, 2011.
Nine of Korsak’s punts have led to the opposition being pinned inside its 10-yard line. In many cases, those punts have been delivered on the run.
The numbers, as impressive as they are, don’t fully illustrate the breadth of Korsak’s contributions or talents.
“I think most people will, on the surface, pull up some stats and they’ll look at average or net (average) or things like that, but kicking and punting is way more,” Lauther says.
“There are times during the game when you’re going into the wind or you’re with the wind. There’s the location of the punt and a million other things that should be determining if you’re actually good or not.
“It’s not even close, how good he is at what he does and where he puts the ball, with all the different trick shots that he has.
“It’s on full display. I think a lot of people are catching on to how good he is and what a weapon he actually is.”
The punting prowess should not be surprising, considering Korsak’s excellence in the NCAA ranks with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
Most notably, he was the 2022 recipient of the Ray Guy Award, which is presented annually to the top punter in NCAA football.
Korsak received that prestigious honour after a season in which his net punting average (44.1 yards) exceeded the gross (44.0).
Korsak, in collaboration with the Scarlet Knights’ punt-coverage team, put opponents in disadvantageous situations so routinely that their total return, er, yardage for the entire season was minus-11.
The year before, his net average (45.0) was the best in NCAA history.
“It’s amazing what he can do, especially in pressure situations,” Lauther marvels. “He’s done it at Rutgers and now he’s doing it in the CFL. It’s not really a surprise when you’re around it every day.
“He’s one of the best players on the team, regardless of position.”
That position, once upon a time, was midfielder — at which he specialized in Australian Rules Football.
He also excelled in cricket and, as you might expect, golf before North American-style football piqued his interest.
At 17, he reached a point where it was necessary to decide whether to proceed with team sports in his homeland or branch off into punting as we know it on this continent.
Opting for the latter, he began training at Prokick Australia, which prepares athletes who aspire to play three- or four-down football.
Next stop: Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J.
As a collegian, he was a Sporting News first-team All-American (2022) and a Ray Guy Award semi-finalist (2021). He was on the Watch List for the latter honour in 2018 and 2020.
Korsak’s skills attracted the attention of two NFL clubs — the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers. He attended those teams’ rookie mini-camps in the spring before signing with Saskatchewan on June 7.
“I love it here,” Korsak says. “It’s kind of the people you’re around who are the biggest thing. The boys in the locker room have been the biggest thing.
“Obviously, Brett and Jorgen (Hus, long snapper) are veterans. They’ve been at it for so long, so it’s easy to just play with them week in and week out. They’re also great people off the field, so that helps a lot.
“And I love Regina. Going to all the different towns (in Canada) as well has been good. If we get in a couple of days early, I’ll check it out.”
Significant spare time has also been spent on the golf course, where Korsak and Lauther conventionally oppose quarterbacks Mason Fine and Jake Dolegala.
Which brings us back to the hole-in-one …
“That was the only day Brett wasn’t there, so it was Jake and Mason against me,” Korsak recalls. “Then I slaughtered both of them. I took them down by myself, and they sent Brett a cheque in the mail.
“Anyway, we get to the 120-yard temporary par-3. I just hit a nice pitching wedge and it one-hopped into the hole.
“Mason was very excited. Jake was kind of shocked and then excited. We enjoyed the walk-up to the green and getting the ball out of the hole.
“That was my first one, so it was pretty cool.”
The way things are going, that might be the only hole in his game.
