Thousands of Virginia fans were yelling and screaming as junior Matt Mengel trotted out onto the field for his first Division I punt.
On UCLA’s sideline, after the Bruins’ went three-and-out on their second possession of the season opener against Virginia, the coaches called for Mengel. He was headed in – as the starter – and until right then, he didn’t know it.
This was a crowd of 45,000-plus. He was used to about 100.
“It was nerve-racking warming up and stuff,” he said.
About to punt away his first ball, Mengel had unofficially become UCLA’s starting punter, a job to which he took a path about as roundabout as possible.
***
When UCLA first announced the signing of Mengel during the dog days of late-July, few knew who he was. The news just broke that last season’s starting punter, Sean Covington, had left the program.
A few weeks earlier, Mengel felt likewise about UCLA in a figurative sense.
“I had no clue about this place until about two weeks before I signed,” he said. “They weren’t interested in me, you know.”
Two years ago, Mengel similarly wasn’t interested in pursuing football further than his three seasons at Pacific Lutheran High School, Los Angeles, where he played on both sides of the trenches, kicked off and had a few punts per season.
Mengel had all but nailed down his post-graduation plans over his last couple years of school. He was going to join the Marines.
“I felt like I didn’t really have anything going for me. I had soccer going for me but competition for that sport is insane,” said Mengel, who played soccer for 16 years, until the end of high school. “I would’ve had a very hard time trying to play soccer professionally or even for a college.”
Mengel was fascinated with the military for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint. When graduation arrived, his opportunity did too.
A friend who knew Mengel had a strong leg for kicking wasn’t about to let him go that easily. He told Mengel to come to a football tryout at Los Angeles Harbor City Community College. He wanted Mengel to at least give kicking a serious shot.
At the tryout, Mengel went but tried out for wide receiver. That didn’t light off any fireworks for then-Harbor coach Brett Peabody. By tryout’s end, Mengel relented and told Peabody, “Coach, I can also kick the ball.”
“Sure enough as soon as we saw him kick, it was clear Matt had incredible natural talent,” Peabody said.
Then, Peabody laid it out simply to Mengel: stick to kicking. A few weeks later, Mengel had won all three kicking jobs at Harbor, and the military had become an afterthought.
“It was definitely a better opportunity – a better choice,” he said. “I’m not away from home … I’m here living, and having a good life.”
***
Mengel was stuck in no man’s land and trying to make a decision.
After Mengel’s freshman season at Harbor, his coach took the same job with Long Beach Community College. Peabody, addressing his players, said if any of them wanted, they could transfer and follow him to LBCC. Many of Mengel’s teammates did.
“I was kind of stuck in Harbor, still deciding ‘What should I do?'” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to kick anymore or where I was going to go.”
Ultimately Mengel, too, opted for LBCC, and in July of that year, he hit a turning point.
At a kicking academy in Bakersfield, Mengel put up a successful showing that earned him a trip to Wisconsin for the National Elite Camp, where he competed against Division I kickers and punters. In the competitions, Mengel, the kicker from junior college, finished right near the middle of the pack.
“At that point, he realized he had a talent, and it could be his future,” said his father, Bob Mengel. “In almost every competition there, he ended up a semifinalist.”
From there, the Mengel family went to Chris Sailer, who runs a well-known punting and kicking camp and sends out the results to Division I colleges, as a spark began to ignite into a flame for Mengel.
***
The offers began to roll in for Mengel – Division III, NAIA when his time at LBCC ended, but he wasn’t much interested in those.
Then, Cal came calling. They wanted him as a preferred walk-on.
For seven months the two sides talked, and it seemed like it was a pen-to-paper commitment with Mengel taking classes, intent on fulfilling Cal’s admission requirements. Then the University of New Mexico shook up the landscape. They went all in and offered him a full-ride.
Then to make matters more complicated, UCLA got into the fray in the middle of July, offering him a preferred walk-on. Coach Jim Mora, on a phone call with Mengel, told him he really wanted him.
A fortuitous July occurrence turned an evolving situation completely topsy-turvy. Mora and Cal coach Sonny Dykes were on a plane together headed to an ESPN conference. As the coaches talked, Mengel’s name came up in the conversation, and Dykes learned that UCLA was also interested.
He texted his special teams coordinator, who called Mengel with Cal’s new upped offer of a full ride. Mengel texted Mora, who was exiting the plane, that Cal had offered him the full, and he was going to Cal. It was the best offer for him, Mengel said. Five minutes later, Mora texted him back.
“‘Screw it, you have the full ride,'” Mengel recalled of text.
In the span of a few hours, Mengel had two more full-rides on the table. The decision – a “very, very tough” one for Mengel according to his dad – tipped in UCLA’s favor by a small factor.
“You can’t really turn down your city, you know,” Mengel said, breaking into a smile.
So, three days before the start of UCLA’s fall training camp, Mengel was on board.
With the path to UCLA having run its course, another one has begun. Over halfway into his first season, Mengel is still trying to master the concept of punting. He is, after all, relatively new to it.
“It’s been challenging,” he said. “It’s really hard to get something down that takes so long to craft.”
If what’s past is prologue, Mengel shouldn’t fret too much. He’ll make his way there, somehow.