Heel Tough Blog: Tar Heels Losing Promising Young Kicker/Punter to Portal

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The opening day of the spring portal has been a crazy one for the Tar Heels as they have lost five more scholarship players and added one. The most recent of the departures comes in the special teams room with a guy that was competing for the starting kicker job this spring.

As he revealed via his social media on Wednesday afternoon, the Tar Heels are losing kicker/punter Lucas Osada to the transfer portal after the completion of spring practice over the weekend. Osada will have three years of eligibility remaining wherever he eventually lands.

Osada saw action in 11 games last year as a true freshman and handled the kickoff duties for the team in the final ten after Liam Boyd suffered a season-ending injury. In those 11 games, he kicked off 59 times and averaged 62.9 yards per kickoff, registered 39 touchbacks and allowed 14 returns for 290 yards and 0 touchdowns. He also kicked one extra point, the lone one in the Fenway Bowl game which was a successful one.

This shouldn’t come as much of a shock with all of the new options that the Tar Heels brought in this offseason at the kicker spot, but they will have to find someone to take over that kickoff role and replicate the success that he had. The hope is that Liam Boyd can reassume that role this season and also step up and be the solution at kicker once again.