Alabama senior specialist JK Scott punted 11 times during Saturday afternoon's A-Day game at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and he also had four kickoffs, four field-goal attempts and three extra-point tries.
Scott wouldn't mind being that active for the Crimson Tide in the 2017 season.
"I love kicking and punting," Scott said in a news conference after A-Day. "I did both in high school. I'll do whatever the coaches want me to do."
The 6-foot-6, 204-pounder from Denver has been known almost entirely as a punter to this point, having rocketed to stardom as a freshman in 2014, when he led the nation with a 48.0-yard average. Scott also kicked off 24 times as a freshman, producing eight touchbacks, but he hasn't been nearly as busy the past two seasons in that category.
In Alabama's 2015 rout of Charleston Southern, Scott made an extra point but missed a field-goal attempt from 33 yards. The more he can do during his final go-around, the merrier he will be.
"I like the busy-ness of it," Scott said, "because one of the problems at punter is being worried about being warmed up. If you're kicking more, you don't have to worry about that problem."
Scott hasn't been as busy as he would like since 2013, when he was a Mullen High senior and averaged 43.8 yards per punt and had 43 of his 44 kickoffs go for touchbacks. He also went 8-for-15 on field-goal attempts.
The kicking role is now open following the departure of three-year starter Adam Griffith, and Scott vied this spring with Andy Pappanastos. A fifth-year senior walk-on, Pappanastos kicked off twice last season, went 6-for-6 on extra points and made a 33-yard field goal in the 31-3 win over UTC, but he missed on 31- and 38-yard field-goal attempts last Saturday.
Alabama coach Nick Saban said last week that Scott could handle the long field-goal attempts and Pappanastos the short ones, evoking the combination he had with Cade Foster and Jeremy Shelley during the 2011 and 2012 national championship seasons.
"I'm comfortable with that situation with those two guys," Saban said.
Yet the Tide's kicking competition in preseason camp also will include Joseph Bulovas of Mandeville, La., who was rated the No. 6 kicker nationally in the 2017 class by 247Sports.com. Bulovas could be the biggest deterrent to Scott handling all three roles, having made a 70-yard field goal in practice.
Scott made three of his four field-goal attempts at A-Day, including a 30-yarder with 1:09 remaining that catapulted the Crimson to a 27-24 win over the White. He enjoyed delivering the game-winner, but neither he nor the person who matters most knows whether that will be his last attempt of the year.
"JK is very, very good at kickoffs, and he's done kickoffs in the past," Saban said. "He is good at long field goals, but we also have a kicker coming in that we like, so I can't say how that's going to work out."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.