The Aussie rules! Adam Korsak makes history in first season with Roughriders
Until Adam Korsak arrived last spring, the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ lineup had never included an alumnus of Rutgers University.
Dating back to 1910 and the inception of the Regina Rugby Club, the ranks of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights had not been mined for as much as a tryout.
Korsak made up for lost time, and then some, while enjoying a spectacular debut season in the CFL.
Last week, he was named the Roughriders’ Most Outstanding Rookie and Most Outstanding Special Teams Player. Then came Thursday’s announcement that he was the West Division’s All-Star punter.
“It’s exciting,” Korsak said. “It’s obviously good to receive an honour like that.
“I’m just thankful to my teammates and to everyone in Saskatchewan for welcoming me. Obviously, my (special teams) coach, Kent Maugeri, helped me a lot.
“It’s just an honour.”
It was the latest honour for Korsak, who in 2022 received the prestigious Ray Guy Award as the top punter in NCAA football.
The Roughriders took notice, selecting the Australian-born Korsak third overall in the 2023 Global Draft.
He signed with Saskatchewan on May 19 after attending NFL rookie mini-camps with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs.
As a first-year pro, Korsak led the CFL in yards per punt (47.9), posting the second-best single-season average in Roughriders history.
Korsak’s exhibited a sense of history on Thursday, when it was pointed out to him that he was the first Roughrider to emanate from Rutgers.
“It’s cool — especially because Rutgers is the birthplace of college football,” he noted. “In 1869, we played Princeton.”
The match, for the record, was held on Nov. 6 of that year in New Brunswick, N.J., where the host Rutgers Queensmen edged the Princeton Tigers 6-4.
Until Korsak landed in Saskatchewan, the Roughriders’ closest connection to Rutgers had been via Kent Austin, a Grey Cup-winning quarterback and head coach with the Green and White.
Austin’s father, Bill, starred for the Scarlet Knights’ football team from 1956 to 1958. As a senior, he was sixth in Heisman Trophy voting.
With the Roughriders’ 2023 season having concluded, Korsak will soon return to the Rutgers campus to spend time with his former team.
“We’re 6-and-2 right now and we’re making a play for a good bowl game, so I’m going to go back there and help out until the bowl game and then hopefully sneak back to Australia for New Year’s,” the Melbourne-born Korsak said.
“I’ll try to help out on punt and punt block. The Australian punter who’s there now (Flynn Appleby) and who replaced me, I recruited from Prokick Australia. He’s doing really, really well. I’ve been working with him since he got there a year ago.
“Then I will just kind of help out with some donor things and be around the program that I was part of for six years and that I love so much.”
Korsak quickly developed a love for North American-style football after transitioning from the Aussie Rules version of the gridiron game.
After starring at Rutgers, he faced another adjustment due to the expansiveness of the Canadian field — a contrast to the compact American playing surface.
“I really liked (the Canadian field), actually, because I felt like I had so much room out there,” Korsak said. “I really liked having that wide field. It’s a lot to cover for the special teams, and that’s why special teams is important — although you do have that extra player.
“The way I punt is very directional, so I really enjoyed (the 87,750-square-foot Canadian field) and I tried to use it to my advantage.”
How would a CFL playing surface compare to a typical football grounds in Australia?
“They’re all different sizes,” Korsak explained. “It just depends on the stadium.
“For example, the Melbourne Cricket Ground — which is kind of like the main field in Australia — is the biggest. I couldn’t really tell you how big it is, but it’s substantially bigger than a Canadian football field.
“Then there’s the Sydney Cricket Ground — Sydney is the next major city — and that’s a really small field.
“They’re all different and they’re all shaped differently. That’s another advantage, because a thing that goes into Australian Rules Football is knowing the field that you’re playing on.”
Now that Korsak is accustomed to the football landscape in Canada, he is looking forward to a second season of accepting snaps from Jorgen Hus while punting the football or holding it for placekicker Brett Lauther.
Hus and Lauther are eligible to become free agents in February. Korsak signed a multi-year contract with the Roughriders in May.
“If Brett, Jorgen and myself are all back here, I think we can just continue from where we left off, which was in a pretty good sync,” Korsak said.
“I think we can be the best special teams unit in the country. I think that’s an (ambitious) expectation but, if we do what we do, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
