Homesickness doesn’t exist for Rhys Dakin.
Sure, he has moments where he wishes he could be with his family or visit one of the many Chinese restaurants located in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, once more. But that’s 8,500 miles away, a 27-hour flight.
A Snapchat group chat keeps him company.
About 10-12 of Dakin’s close friends from Australia are part of a group chat on the app. Each person in that group chat is going through the same thing — living halfway across the world, away from everything they’ve known growing up, to punt a football with the hopes of making millions of dollars in the near future.
It’s a friendly reminder that he’s not on this journey alone.
“We’re all punters, so we all talk about the same problems we face and being out of [Australian] college,” Dakin said. “It’s good to sort of hear that they’re going through the same sort of shoot that I am. That’s what makes it easier — knowing we’re all in this together, and we’re not too far from either.”
By chance
Ahead of Iowa’s matchup against Massachusetts on Sept. 13, Dakin chatted with three players from the opposing team who are also Australian special-teamers and took a photo with them. It’s something he tries to do whenever he runs into a fellow Aussie on the gridiron.
ProKick Australia is responsible for that.
The Melbourne-based football business has developed talented Australian athletes into U.S. college football kickers for more than 18 years. The opportunity, however, is invite-only. Dakin found his way in by chance.
He grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne, a city dominated by Australian rules football. His father, Mark, played the sport and pushed his son to do the same around the age of six. But the love for the sport permeated through the entire family.
“I just come from a family that grew up watching it and playing it,” Dakin said. “Melbourne is a pretty big footy city. That’s where all the talent comes from, and so I’m always around it.”
Compared to American football, Australian rules football is distinctively different. The game has little stoppage. Padding is minimal. All 18 players on the field for each team can attack and defend simultaneously. And the ball is moved around differently.
“It’s not like you throw [the ball] like rugby. It’s all punching the ball to a teammate, but it’s 70 percent kicking and running around,” Dakin said. “So that’s what I grew up doing, and that’s why I can punt the football.”
Dakin played Australian rules football all the way until high school, where he attended Mazenod College, a Catholic school in the suburbs of Melbourne. Standing 6-foot-4 by the time he was 18 years old, he held high hopes of becoming a professional Australian rules football player.
It’s around that age when players get drafted into the Australian Football League. Due to the way things were looking at the time, Dakin felt off about his chances.
“You’ve got to be really fit to run out games in Australian rules football. It wasn’t really going to be my thing,” Dakin said. “So I just found something else to do.”
After coming to this realization, Dakin took a trip to Flagstaff, Arizona, where his mom, Leann, is from. His parents recommended he try punting in Phoenix, so he took the two-hour drive south to AZ Kicking and Training Facility to do so.
The coaches saw his potential right away.
“They just took a quick look at me, taught me a couple of small things that set me up [when I got] to go back home,” Dakin said. “They said I had Division I potential, so I took their word and took a chance. They said I could join ProKick, or I could join Punt Factory, which is their competitor, both in Australia, and I decided to go with ProKick.”
As soon as he returned to Melbourne, he began working with ProKick on and off for a few months while finishing school and his Australian rules football season. His full-time commitment paid off after a wave of scholarships came in during the first couple months of being in the program.
ProKick kept the names of schools to offer Dakin away from him, but one school he knew for sure he had an offer from: Iowa.
Special teams coordinator LeVar Woods came across Dakin’s film and was impressed. After a few phone calls, Woods felt like the person behind the kick was still a mystery, so he flew to Australia in November, 2023 to meet the punter in person.
“It’s one thing to watch someone’s tape — he’s really talented and gifted,” Woods said. “But I don’t think you can really get to know what that person is going to be like until you get a chance to meet them. He was a very genuine person, a very hard-working person, great family — things that we thought mesh well here at Iowa.”
His time with Dakin consisted of minimal football talk, which left a strong impression on not just Dakin but also his family.
“He wasn’t just there to see me punt; he wasn’t worried about that. He cared about who I am and how I was brought up, and that helps him coach me,” Dakin said. “That just makes me feel like I’m in another family.
“It also made my family feel better knowing there’s a guy they can trust, that I’m going to be good and happy. Just knowing Coach Woods is a really good human being, wants to see me succeed, and wants the best for me — there was sort of a no-brainer that I’m going to be right and I’m going to be good.”
A month later, Dakin committed to Iowa, officially succeeding All-American and Ray Guy Award winner Tory Taylor.
Seamless transition
The first time Dakin visited Iowa City after committing was in January, 2024, during one of the coldest periods of the year. A blizzard greeted the Australian upon his arrival, but his confidence in his commitment never wavered.
Woods said he was shaky about the timing of the visit, but spoke with an optimistic tone.
“If you like it here now, you’ll love it in June, July,” Woods told Dakin.
No matter how much research was done before the visit, Dakin couldn’t have been ready for the winter weather, though he did prepare himself through a set of YouTube videos.
“I knew nothing about Iowa. I was like, ‘Where the hell is Iowa?’” Dakin said. “I looked at some YouTube videos of the town, and it looked like a really cool place… I also looked up [Iowa football head coach [Kirk] Ferentz, and it seemed like a really well put together program. I also heard from my coaches that he’s a really good coach. And also from Tory [Taylor] as well, he really enjoyed working with him.”
Despite hailing from the same city and coming from the same punting program, Dakin and Taylor didn’t have a prior relationship. The two talked periodically shortly before and after Dakin’s commitment, and when he flew into town, Taylor was the one to pick him and his father up from the airport.
Taylor, now the punter for the NFL’s Chicago Bears, has mentored Dakin from a distance, giving him advice and even offering his jersey No. 9. Dakin now dons the number every time he’s on the field. To succeed a player like Taylor could be a daunting task, but Dakin remains focused on his own play.
“I feel like he’s really good about not playing the comparison game,” Iowa kicker Drew Stevens said. “If you shine light on it, he’s gonna see it … I feel like he’s done a really good job of staying his course and being Rhys Dakin.”
Stevens has worked alongside both Dakin and Taylor and admits there are similarities between the two, one of them being that they both make punting look much easier than it is.
“From an outsider’s perspective, I always thought, ‘Oh, it’s just the guy who can hit the biggest ball.’ And I’ll say, there’s so many other factors that go into it,” Stevens said. “A lot of people might think it’s easy to just catch it and punt it. But doing it at that speed and actually hitting a good ball is probably the hardest part.”
What makes Dakin even more special is his character.
“[He’s] a great, great teammate, a great human being who cares about his teammates as people, not only just as players,” Woods said. “Loyal friend, loyal teammate. Never heard anyone complain about him or say otherwise.”
“He’s just a boneheaded, big, caring guy. He’s definitely a dude that I feel like everybody would be grateful to have in their room, especially coming from Australia,” Stevens said. “Maybe he was uncomfortable when he first got here, but having a year in the program and being in the room with the guys and getting closer, I feel like he’s definitely a good guy to have around.”
Dakin had never punted a football in a game setting until his Hawkeye debut against Illinois State in 2024.
Dakin logged 64 punts for 2,822 yards in his first season at Iowa, finishing ninth in the country in total punting yards. Six of the eight punters who finished ahead of Dakin are also from Australia.
“They just find talented guys, and they teach them the ways of American football,” Woods said. “And I think that they instill all the hard work, all the things that we ask from people, and the things we ask for them in American football.”
Dakin earned several honors, including FWAA Freshman All-American, PFF All-True Freshman Team, second-team All-Big Ten by the media, third-team All-Big Ten by the coaches, AP second-team All-Big Ten; and Phil Steele third-team All-Big Ten.
“Last year, every time he went out on the field was a brand new experience for him,” Woods said. “You can talk about it in practice, and you can think about them and whatnot, but you can’t ever really simulate those things until you get into it. I think he’s done a really good job with that, and I think he’s grown with each and every rep and each and every opportunity.”
The transition from Australian rules football to American football appears seamless when it comes to punting. In Dakin’s case, it acted as a security blanket for his shortcomings in a potential AFL career, and it’s all thanks to ProKick Australia.
“I don’t feel like I’ve made a mistake coming here. This is what I was made to do, and I’m utilizing my strengths,” Dakin said. “I’m where I’m supposed to be.”