Meet Dane Olmstead, the Mizzou punter commit putting Freeburg on the map
Dane Olmstead fielded a high snap and took off. Without hesitation, he knew attempting a punt would likely wind up with the ball going backwards, so he cut right, slipped through an attempted tackle and found space.
All 6-foot-2, 215 pounds of Olmstead started flying down the right side of the field. He slipped through two more defenders before lowering his left shoulder, putting a Roxana (Ill.) special teamer on his back before being tripped up after a 32-yard gain.
“Had to show some punter athleticism on Friday,” Olmstead wrote to social media Oct. 5.
“Instead of just kicking it on the run, he just decided, ‘I’m just going to take it,'” Freeburg (Ill.) Community head coach Ronnie Stuart said. “He faked one guy out. I’m like, ‘Oh boy.’ And then he keeps going. This guy had a beat on him, and he lowered his shoulder and ran over him.”
After a long-winded scramble from Olmstead, Freeburg capitalized on the turning point, downing Roxana 21-19 on its home field. That play unsurprisingly stuck with Stuart and his staff throughout the remainder of the year and ensuing offseason.
Olmstead, a Missouri commit in the 2027 class, might now offer a little more to Freeburg than just kicking the ball away. Stuart wouldn’t show all of his cards, but he disclosed intentions to use Olmstead in trick plays during his senior season.
“We may have to utilize him a little bit more this year than what we have in the past,” Stuart said. “I can’t promise you anything, but he’s going to go to do some other things for us somewhere on the field, other than just being a special teams guy.”
Mizzou checks in with Dane Olmstead
Olmstead and Stuart reminisced on that October play Tuesday. John Papuchis paid a visit to Freeburg to see the two as the Tigers’ new special teams coordinator showed excitement about having a bigger and more physical specialist set to join the team next year.
“Dane was joking, ‘I’ve always thought about playing quarterback,'” Stuart laughed. “So he’s definitely a jokester in that realm, but he’s up for it. Whatever we can do and put him at, he’s willing to do that.”
Even after focusing more on special teams in his junior season, Olmstead still showed his physical traits while turning into a college prospect. He has served as the safety man on kickoffs and punts. He’s shown no fear about being the last guy in line to make a tackle if a returner got past the gunners.
“Wrestlers, typically, are really good football players,” Stuart said. “There’s times that we could use him in the backfield at a running back. We’ve been talking a little bit to him this offseason that we could really use him at playing defensive end for us, and having a 215-pound state champion wrestler could do a lot of things for us on the other side of the ball, too.”
Putting Freeburg on the map
Stuart, who also coached Olmstead’s older brother, gave praise to the players who came through his program his past 21 years as a head coach. But he also acknowledged no one at Freeburg — a high school with less than 700 enrolled students — has reached the status of Olmstead, the top-ranked punter by Rivals and 247Sports.
“I’ve never had a kid go this high or be ranked that high in our program history,” Stuart said about Olmstead, who is trained by former NFL kicker Austin Seibert. “He’s really putting Freeburg on the map, so that’s something that’s really cool about this, too.”
When Papuchis noted Olmstead as the primary specialist for the Tigers in the 2027 class, he asked the three-star if he still wanted to look at other programs. Olmstead, who has openly called Missouri his dream school for months, gave a short answer: “No.”
“I looked at him, and I’m like, ‘Cool, man,'” Stuart laughed about his player’s humble nature. “Dane could come in and be really good with their guys that they have and compete. … It’s once in a lifetime, man.”