The battle for the Tulane Green Wave's starting kicker job highlights experience versus raw talent.
There are plenty of positional battles to watch as the Tulane Green Wave football team continues through the second half of spring camp. Namely, the quarterback competition catches headlines. But the special teams room for the Green Wave had considerable turnover. New Tulane special teams coach Chris Forestier is tasked with finding a new starting kicker and punter ahead of the 2026 college football season.
Quietly, one of the biggest transfer portal losses for the Green Wave was kicker Patrick Durkin, and punter Alec Clark was high up on the value list. But Durkin was nothing short of clutch in his second year at Tulane. He was 25-for-28 on field goals, 41-for-42 on extra points, went 7-for-9 from 40+, and had four 50+ kicks with a long of 52 yards. He won games for the Green Wave with his abilities.
In his absence, new transfer Jackson Courville and returning local product, Cooper Helmke. Both seem to have a chip on their shoulder as they’re embracing the healthy competition. Courville lost out on a kicking battle at Ohio State, which was tough after two years kicking for Ball State – on a team that includes current competing Green Wave quarterback Kadin Semonza. It wasn’t just the loss of opportunity on the field. Courville missed the brotherhood and feeling like he was part of an actual team, something he lost with the Buckeyes.
“I’m a kicker, but I go out and work out with all these guys,” Courville said. “I do all the running; I did the Gauntlet with them. I’m an athlete just as much as I’m a kicker.”
Courville doesn’t consider himself to be the most physically gifted, but he does think he’s the most mentally and physically disciplined, with the former being a notable trait picked up on by Forestier.
Perhaps the antithesis, Helmke is what you would call a physically gifted and talented kicker with a boomer of a leg. But Helmke hasn’t had the start to his career he envisioned after flipping to sign with Tulane last year. He was in the running against Durkin before a sports hernia turned into a fractured L5 bone in his vertebra, which led to Helmke being delegated to “doing absolutely nothing” for three months and a lengthy rehab process.
Helmke finally returned after not participating in offseason work or the first two weeks of practice. His leg strength is something to see. For Helmke, it’s about the unproveness and harnessing that strength into accuracy.
If he can marry those two, the sky is the limit. His official long is 49 yards. Unofficially? A local TV crew witnessed – and can attest to – Helmke kicking a 77-yard field goal in warmups at St. Martin’s high school.
Officially, Courville has a career long 52-yarder to match Durkin’s. He has the experience to back it up. Helmke has the raw talent. Both welcome and value the competition between each other pushing greatness out of them both.