New Kentucky special teams coordinator Parker Fleming must find a new punter to begin his tenure in Lexington. The Wildcats could be going back to old reliable. Australian punting could be found again at Kroger Field in 2026.
Max Duffy won the Ray Guy Award in 2019 as the best punter in college football when the Australian punter averaged led college football in punting average (48.1 yards). However, former special teams coordinator Jay Boulware rolled with pro-style pocket punting during his three years on staff in Lexington. Fleming is not committing to one style or another but seems to be a fan of the Australian style that includes punting on the run and holding the ball for a longer period to allow your coverage team to get down the field.
“The Australian punter thing…they’ve kind of taken over different styles in different places. I mean, even in the NFL, they have a bunch of guys doing really well,” Fleming explained. “They just have a number of factors involved, but they have a slightly different skill set than American punters in terms of the way they grew up on the move, eyes down field, avoiding, and getting the ball in unique positions. I think that that’s something that is really appealing to me.”
During the winter transfer portal window, Kentucky added Murray State transfer Tom O’Hara to the roster. The FCS punter is currently competing for the starting job in Lexington. O’Hara is an Australian native who averaged 44 yards per punt in 2025 and 44.9 yards per punt in 2024. The college football veteran has 32 career punts of 50-plus yards. Over 70 percent of O’Hara’s career punts have been fair caught or landed inside the 20. The Australian style has a lot to do with that.
That unique punting format sounds like it will be returning to Bluegrass this fall.
Following Will Stein was a ‘no brainer’ for Parker Fleming
Parker Fleming joined Urban Meyer‘s Ohio State staff in 2012 as a graduate assistant before separate two-year stints at James Madison and Texas State. Fleming would return to Columbus in 2018 as a quality control assistant. That would lead to a promotion to special teams coordinator in 2021. After a change was made at the position, Fleming landed at Oregon in 2025 and worked closely with Will Stein as the assistant quarterbacks coach in Eugene. Despite spending just one season together, these two coaches built a strong bond.
That led to Fleming following Stein to Lexington.
“I mean everything. Who he is. What he is as a person and a coach,” Fleming said when asked why he took the gig at Kentucky. “I’ve known Will for a long time, but kind of through other people, and we’ve bumped into each other here and there and then getting to work with him and for him last year was really a, you know, just put the nail in the coffin for me.”
“This was a conversation we’d had a number of times, and him being from here and, you know, obviously growing up a fan, it’s really fun for me to kind of feed off his energy for the place too and history and the passion…It was a no brainer.”
Fleming will now get another chance to run a special teams unit after the assistant was let go by head coach Ryan Day after the 2023 season. The assistant coach resurfaced at Oregon and is now following Stein to Kentucky along with Pat Biondo (general manager), Cutter Leftwich (offensive line), and Dallas Warmack (assistant offensive line).