Adam Gibbs first started watching college football in 2024 at the age of 17.<\/p>\n
So when Gibbs, a native of Newry, Northern Ireland, found\u00a0out from his coach in June that he\u2019d have the opportunity to punt and kick in front of coaches at Penn State, it was time to do a little research and learn something about these Nittany Lions from rural Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found out they were ranked,\u201d Gibbs said of a rather enlightening Google search he can now laugh about.<\/p>\n
\u201c(That) they were in the College Football (Playoff) semifinals last year. (That) there was a good returning team this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
And James Franklin? The head coach?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe man\u2019s big time,\u201d Gibbs said of the 53-year-old who offered him a full scholarship on the spot after watching him punt at Beaver Stadium this summer. \u201cJust out of pure joy, I nearly hugged him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibbs, a 6-foot-2, 190-pounder with a big personality and a huge leg, will have plenty of time to learn more about Franklin and the Nittany Lions in the coming years. He committed to Penn State on June 29, one week after receiving the offer, and is thrilled to join the growing list of Irishmen kicking in American football. Last year, Gibbs quickly adopted three teams to cheer on, to follow the \u201clads,\u201d as he called them \u2014 Sean O\u2019Haire (Richmond), Jack Scullion (Rutgers) and Paddy McAteer (Troy). O\u2019Haire has since transferred to Maryland.<\/p>\n
Gibbs is just starting to realize how improbable his journey is.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be committed to Penn State, you couldn\u2019t even say it\u2019s a dream come true because you would\u2019ve never dreamed of going somewhere that high,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cBut now it\u2019s just like \u2014 it\u2019s insane.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore March of last year, I would never have watched American football, would have never had any interest in it. But now, in the past year, I\u2019ve become a bit of a superfan. \u2026 I\u2019ve just been sort of obsessed with the game now for the past year, and it\u2019s crazy and just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibbs grew up about 65 miles north of Dublin playing both soccer and Gaelic football \u2014 a cross between rugby and soccer. He was inspired to check out American football last year when Charlie Smyth, who grew up just 10 minutes away from Gibbs\u2019 in Newry, signed as a free-agent kicker with the New Orleans Saints in March 2024. Smith had previously played goalkeeper in the Gaelic Athletic Association and joined the Saints through the NFL\u2019s International Player Pathway program.<\/p>\n
Before signing with the Saints, Smyth had trained with local coach Tadhg Leader, a former professional rugby player from Ireland\u2019s West Coast who has made it his mission to canvas Ireland looking for the country\u2019s best punters and kickers to connect them with U.S. teams.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Smyth) made waves in Ireland \u2014 a guy going from never playing the sport to (playing) in the NFL,\u201d Leader said. \u201cSo (shortly after) we had an open session where I was looking for guys for college football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember this guy turning up who was just booming the ball comfortably. He was probably 16 at the time, mid-50s, no problem \u2014 50-yard field goals that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
That teenager was Gibbs, who at one point during the session kicked the ball so far that his mother had to hop a fence to retrieve it. Ireland\u2019s best athletes are typically kickers, Leader said, so it was common to see players at the practice boot the ball 50 or 60 yards. But Gibbs, at 16, was kicking more like a 20-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the session, just as I was talking to loads of people, I didn\u2019t get a chance to speak to him and I didn\u2019t know who he was,\u201d Leader said. \u201cI just had this guy who was booming the ball on my iPhone, but I didn\u2019t know who it was. And then fast forward a week or two, some kid messaged me saying he left his hoodie behind at the practice. \u2026 And then I was able to put two and two together that that was Adam.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibbs was initially hesitant about attending another workout, but stuck with it at Leader\u2019s urging and began to train with him. A few months later, in June 2024, Leader invited Gibbs along on a pre-planned trip to the United States. Leader had a few other kickers with college interest in the States \u2014 including McAteer \u2014 but knew that coaches were still skeptical of Irish players and would need to see them on American soil before they were comfortable offering a scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018I think I\u2019ll take Adam just to give him exposure to the States and see if he\u2019s as good as I think he is. It was also for my own verification,\u201d Leader said.<\/p>\n
The group worked out at John Carroll University in Ohio.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hit a 65-yard field goal and was able to kick off, putting the ball almost equivalent to (into the stands),\u201d Leader said.<\/p>\n
Shortly after that trip, McAteer signed with Troy, whose special teams analyst at the time was Allen Tucker. This past May, Tucker made the move to \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 Penn State and coordinated with Leader to bring Gibbs to campus in June to kick for coaches in person.<\/p>\n
Gibbs admits he had no expectations for his Penn State trip. After a layover in Amsterdam, he and Leader landed at JFK Airport in New York and spent the five-hour drive to State College talking about Gibbs\u2019 process.<\/p>\n
He had just 15 minutes to warm up before the 30-minute workout commenced in front of Tucker and special teams coordinator Justin Lustig. That\u2019s when Franklin \u2014 who was on one of his \u201cold man walks\u201d as he calls his strolls around the stadium \u2014 took off his headphones and came over to chat with Leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then Adam\u2019s first punt that he hit, I have a good video of it, coach Franklin standing over his shoulder, and he hits, I think, 64 yards with 5.3 seconds of hang, which is just abnormal,\u201d Leader said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Adam hit a couple of bombs, (Franklin) then walked away with coach Lustig, and at that point, I assumed something good was happening because it was not normal what Adam was doing for a kid of his age. Coach Franklin just pulled me aside and said, \u2018Listen, would it be OK if we offered Adam a full ride right now?\u2019 And so then obviously I said, \u2018Yeah. That\u2019s why we flew from Ireland and drove from New York. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u2019 So that was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lustig was so excited that he pitched the idea of calling Gibbs\u2019 mother back home to share the good news. She was asleep \u2014 it was 1 a.m. in Ireland and she had to be at work at 6 a.m. \u2014 and was caught off guard, thinking something was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to ring her the next morning just to be like, \u2018This is actually happening,\u2019\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cShe had no words, but she was overjoyed. Dad was overjoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibbs announced his commitment to Penn State later that week and has been mesmerized by all the videos of the crowds at Beaver Stadium he has since been sent on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.<\/p>\n
His Newry community still may not totally understand the magnitude of what\u2019s ahead, but he can very much feel the backing of Ireland as he gears up for his next chapter.<\/p>\n
For now, the plan is for him to punt and handle kickoffs at Penn State. He\u2019s not quite sure yet if he\u2019ll enroll early in January 2026 or wait until June. And no, he doesn\u2019t have any NIL deals at the moment.<\/p>\n
However, he\u2019s excited to experience a Penn State game in person, whether it\u2019s on a visit later this fall or in uniform the following season. One thing\u2019s for certain: He\u2019s pumped for the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver here, when I play Gaelic football, it\u2019s an amateur sport \u2014 I\u2019m playing in front of 50 people every Tuesday,\u201d he said. \u201cTo go from playing in front of 50 people to playing in front of 107,000 people, it\u2019s a step up that no one at home can physically comprehend in their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, is Ireland the new Australia when it comes to supplying U.S. colleges with specialists? Not quite, but Leader is proud of his disciples and the impact they are having on American football.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a new wave, a new community of these lads going over and doing it, which is unbelievable,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re all getting more perspective from each guy\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys have to learn from each other and they all feed back to each other what they\u2019re going through to then prepare the next guy. So it\u2019s a cool community piece that\u2019s part of it, as well \u2014 which Adam will obviously play his role in.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo of Adam Gibbs and Tadhg Leader courtesy of Adam Gibbs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam Gibbs first started watching college football in 2024 at the age of 17. So when Gibbs, a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":110177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1428,1318,1317,1315,1316,1381,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-110176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114953383070477713","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}