USC kicker Alex Stadthaus put on scholarship by Lincoln Riley
During the frenetic flurry of transfer portal comings and goings in December, USC surprising had both of its primary kickers enter the portal in a short span.
But it was a short stay for Alex Stadthaus, who was lured back after a conversation with new coach Lincoln Riley, who offered the former walk-on a scholarship spot on the roster.
"It was really interesting. Basically, over the course of one week in December it went from me kind of saying I can't play football again if I'm going to be taking on student loans, so this is either going to be me playing football on scholarship or I've got to go find somewhere else to play," Stadthaus recalled. "Over the course of about a week or so it just materialized into Coach Riley saying, 'Yeah, we really want you back. You're the kind of guy we're looking for and this is what we're moving forward with.' Fortunately, they offered me a scholarship and I'm on scholarship here at USC for the first time. I'm real excited to be back here."
Stadthaus, a redshirt senior (but with two years of eligibility left), has been with the Trojans since 2018, out of Austin, Texas. He handled kickoffs for USC in 2018 and 2019 and played his biggest role yet last season, trading off kicking duties with Lewis going 6-for-6 on field goals and 11-for-11 on extra points while 18 of his 30 kickoffs went for touchbacks.
It was both a breakthrough fall for the kicker but also a period of uncertainty as he didn't know if it would be his last football season, due to the financial burden of being a walk-on player.
"I was kind of in limbo. It was interesting because I really wasn't sure. I was getting courted by a number of different schools around the country, but knowing what was going to actually develop and what wasn't was kind of hard to tell at that time. I was content with the fact that I could have been done," he said. "But I was really hoping that I was going to get another opportunity and fortunately that's what happened."
