When the Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium lights come into view from the team bus on gameday, redshirt junior punter Luke Akers shifts the queue in his playlist.
The pregame worship music that he listens to switches off as the first chime of AC/DC’s Hells Bells pipes through his headphones.
It’s a routine Akers has done since high school when he first began punting and has carried into his third season with Northwestern.
“I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little ‘stitious,’” Akers said, paraphrasing “The Office” character Michael Scott. “I like keeping the same routines for every practice, every game, and if I stray from that, then it bothers me a little bit.”
The routines have paid off for Akers, who has earned the starting role at punter for the Wildcats (2-2, 0-1 Big Ten) this year.
Akers has punted 19 times in the season’s opening four games, averaging just under 41 yards per punt. Eight have landed inside the 20-yard line and two have been longer than 50 yards.
“Luke is a tireless worker,” coach David Braun said. “I mean, there’s a lot of things we’re putting on Luke’s plate right now, and he’s excelling in that space … credit to him on everything he’s done to create the opportunity for himself this year.”
Hailing from a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, Akers picked up kicking as a junior in high school to make friends on the football team after changing schools. He had played soccer all his life and transitioned toward another use for his legs.
He already had a good coach to train him: His father, legendary kicker David Akers, a six-time Pro Bowler, two-time first-team All-Pro and a member of the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame. Yet David Akers didn’t encourage his son to follow in his footsteps.
“My dad never pushed me to play football,” Akers said. “Whatever I did, he just wanted me to go 100 percent at what I did, so I approached it that way.”
After transitioning to focusing on football full time in his senior season of high school, Akers was tabbed the No. 3 kicker in the 2020 recruiting class by 247Sports.
He committed to UCLA, where he started 19 games and boomed a 66-yard punt –– his career long –– against Hawaii in 2021.
Akers transferred to NU in 2022 and started in all 12 games before redshirt junior Hunter Renner shared the bulk of reps in 2023. Akers used the 2023 season, his junior year, as a redshirt season and had surgery in the off-season.
Akers said he had surgery following the season and spent part of the offseason recovering. He said that this year’s off-season was his first off-season spent without injury and took advantage of it.
“(We) had the competition going into spring ball and I just wanted to go out and work and try to do the things off the field that would help me as well,” Akers said. “Overall, I just wanted to get stronger and just be able to go out and perform for the guys.”
He won the job over Renner and has been heavily involved on special teams. Braun noted that in addition to punting, Akers also contributes to kickoffs and is the long-range field goal kicker near the end of the half. When NU’s offense sputters, Akers is bound to flip the field for the ’Cats defense.
“I want to continue to make an impact for the team, and I’d like to get a deep field goal in there once in a while –– that’d be fun too,” Akers said. “But I just want to keep having a blast with the guys. Let’s go get a bowl and let’s go have some fun for the rest of the year.”
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