LAS VEGAS — Matt Choules has been punting footballs for most of his life. What he has not done yet is punt one in a college game.
With UNLV’s opener less than two weeks away, the Canberra native is preparing to use a skill he developed through Australian rules football and two years of specialized punting training. At Kennesaw State last season, he waited for NCAA clearance and never got into a game.
“It was really hard last year not being able to play,” Choules said. “I was in a little bit of a sticky situation with academics coming out of Australia. And so I was really like every game I was kind of hoping, hoping, hoping that I’d get cleared by the NCAA.”
“I’ve worked for this for a very long time, and getting out there and hitting that first ball is just gonna, I think, give me that power to just keep going and get higher and higher,” Choules said.
The skill itself is not new. Choules grew up playing Australian rules football, where kicking is a fundamental part of moving the ball. Long before he considered playing college football in the United States, he had already spent years developing the leg that eventually created the opportunity.
“The main way we move that ball is by punting, which is a little bit weird, so kind of from the get-go I’ve been punting my whole life,” Choules said.
The transition to American football came after people around Choules began telling him that ability could translate. He spent two years training with ProKick Australia before eventually receiving an opportunity at Kennesaw State.
His recruiting process looked much different from the traditional path most American high school players take. Instead of building a résumé through Friday night games and recruiting camps, Choules filmed himself kicking and sent the videos to college coaches.
“You get a scholarship off of just videos you’re kicking on a field, which is pretty red hot,” Choules said. “Literally just from videos, send them over to coaches and you get bites, bites, bites and eventually get an offer here and there.”
Kennesaw State became his first college stop, but Choules redshirted before eventually entering the transfer portal. When he began looking for another opportunity, UNLV offered something particularly attractive for a specialist: a head coach who pays close attention to the position.
The move has also meant another adjustment away from the field. Choules compared the humidity he experienced in Georgia with the dry heat in Las Vegas, where camp temperatures were far beyond the weather he knew in Canberra. He has already had to settle into two American college settings before getting the game opportunity he crossed the Pacific to pursue.
He said a friend who had made the move to Prairie View A&M encouraged him to consider the American game. That gave him a connection to someone who had already made the transition he was considering, before his own move to Kennesaw State.
Choules pointed to Dan Mullen’s history with punters and his involvement with the specialists as one of the biggest reasons UNLV stood out.
“There’s not many head coaches that are as hands-on as he is about punt,” Choules said. “He says punt’s the most important part of the game. And so he stands back there with us and he definitely gets in our head a little bit and puts a bit of pressure on us.”
“He’s the reason as a specialist you want to come here because he knows what he’s talking about and it just puts us in the best positions possible to perform,” Choules said.
Mullen’s history also gave Choules examples of where the position can lead. He mentioned former Mullen punters Jeremy Crawshaw and Tommy Townsend while discussing why UNLV appealed to him, but his learning has not been limited to players from Mullen’s past.
Choules has also built a relationship with Raiders punter AJ Cole. He said he has kicked with Cole and uses him as a resource when he needs advice, giving him a chance to study an NFL specialist while preparing for his own first college season.
Cole’s record gives that practice connection some context. The Raiders signed him after a rookie minicamp tryout in 2019. By the time they announced a multiyear extension in May 2025, he had earned three consecutive Pro Bowl selections from 2021 through 2023. His 45.1-yard net punting average in 2023 led the NFL and set a Raiders single-season record dating to 1976.
What stands out to Choules is not simply Cole’s ability to produce a big punt. Plenty of punters can hit one great ball. Choules watches how little changes from one rep to the next.
“The most impressive thing about a guy like him and these NFL guys is their hands,” Choules said. “Their hands are so robotic. It’s for me, you kind of nerd out watching it, they’re just the same thing every single time.”
“He just hit that great ball over and over and over again,” Choules said. “It’s really inspiring and really good to watch, but yeah, it’s just that consistent, consistent routine of every single muscle and every single step’s in the exact same spot.”
That pursuit of consistency connects Choules with another Australian who recently held the job at UNLV. Choules said he has a relationship with former Rebels punter Cam Brown and worked with him in Michigan about a month before fall camp.
“He’s awesome,” Choules said. “He did a really good job here last year. Really, really hard worker, and just his work ethic’s kind of rubbed off on me going out there. He did a great job setting up a little bit of Australian love around here, so hopefully I keep that going.”
Special teams coordinator Mitch Singler sees value in maintaining that Australian pipeline. He said players coming through ProKick often arrive with years of experience kicking the ball and the ability to execute different styles of punts that can give a special teams staff more options.
Singler said those evaluations draw on relationships with the players’ trainers as well as video from training and games. His staff can examine both the work that precedes a scholarship offer and the different situations in which a prospect has already kicked.
“These kids have special talent,” Singler said. “They have special legs and they’ve been doing it at a young age. And for us as special teams coordinators, these kids can do multiple different styles of kicks and that makes it very unique for us because it does things schematically that helps us do things differently maybe than other teams.”
Choules is also becoming part of an operation in which somebody else gets the final kick. He is working as Ramon Villela’s holder, receiving the long snap and setting the ball for a kicker entering his second season in the starting job. The punt is the new college experience Choules has waited for. The hold gives him another responsibility that can decide whether the team gets points.
Villela did not sound as though he was waiting to be convinced by the new partnership. He praised Choules and long snapper Tyson Jacobson when discussing why he felt confident entering the season. “Matt’s a very good holder. He’s one of the best holders I’ve had,” Villela said. That is a teammate’s evaluation of the work already happening in camp, with game pressure still to come.
The relationship places Choules beside a kicker who has already experienced very different demands in this offense. Villela made two 50-yard field goals last season and a 23-yarder with 15 seconds remaining to beat Miami (Ohio). The shorter attempt still required the snap, hold and protection to arrive in time. Choules has to be dependable enough that Villela can concentrate on his own contact rather than wonder where the ball will be set.
Brown’s own arrival came through an Australian background, too. UNLV’s biography lists him with representative Australian rules experience on the Queensland state team and four championships. Before Brown, Charlton Butt punted for the Rebels in 2020 and 2021. Choules is joining a position with a recent Australian history while still having to establish what his own kicks will give the team.
Singler wants the punt unit to leave UNLV’s defense a long field to protect. That will require Choules to work with the snapper, protection and coverage players.
Choules’ transition has still included a few new experiences. Fall camp gave him his first opportunity to punt indoors when UNLV practiced at the Raiders’ facility, where the absence of wind removed one of the variables specialists usually have to account for.
“You can rip on them in there because there’s no wind, there’s nothing there kind of messing with you,” Choules said. “You’re pretty lucky as a specialist to go in there and rip them because nothing affects it.”
