AUBURN — Looking back on it now, Arryn Siposs describes the decision he made as “high-risk, high-reward.”

The risk was flying nearly 10,000 miles from Melbourne, Australia, to Auburn, leaving behind an Australian rules football career in the hopes of becoming an American football punter. The reward — he hoped — would be to follow in the footsteps of countrymen like Michael Dickson, who came to America from Sydney, became a star at Texas and was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the fifth round of the 2018 NFL draft.

“You got to come over here and really get the job done, or there’s no point, is there?” Siposs said this past Saturday in his first interview since arriving in Auburn. “You’ve kind of failed coming over here and giving it a crack.”

The risk has been worth it so far. Siposs didn’t win the competition with incumbent Aidan Marshall to be Auburn’s starting punter in the fall, but he was on the field more than the field more than him in a Week 1 win over Washington in Atlanta and was named the starter ahead of a Week 2 thrashing of Alabama State.

On Tuesday, head coach Gus Malzahn announced that Marshall, a sophomore walk-on, had left the Tigers’ program. Siposs, a first-year sophomore, will be the guy going forward.

“We feel very good about Arryn,” Malzahn said. “He's done a good job.”

Siposs was a player Auburn desperately needed this season. Last year, the team ranked 102nd nationally averaging 39.47 yards per punt and allowing 11.43 yards per opponent punt return.

Never was that more of an issue than Oct. 14 against the same LSU team Auburn will host at Jordan-Hare Stadium this Saturday, when DJ Chark returned a Marshall punt 75 yards for a touchdown that came as part of the 20 unanswered points LSU scored in a come-from-behind, 27-23 victory.

We feel very good about Arryn. He’s done a good job.

Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn

Siposs said he has seen that play on film. He hopes it won’t be the case this time around.

By all accounts, the 25-year-old Australian is off to a strong start on the Plains. Marshall’s first and only punt against the Huskies covered just 30 yards. The first two of Siposs’ career averaged 43.5 yards. His second punt against the Hornets this past Saturday was downed inside the 20.

“I’ve been really happy and the coaches have been really happy with how it’s gone so far, which has been really good,” Siposs said. “So as long as I’m making them happy and I’m doing my job, then it certainly makes things a lot easier for me. I’m just really enjoying the experience, and hopefully I can continue doing that. We’ve obviously got some really big games coming up in the next few weeks, and I’ll be ready to go.”

It has been a significant adjustment for Siposs, though. For starters, he’s gone from a city of more than 4.8 million people in Melbourne to what he described as a “small, essentially country town” of about 64,000 in Auburn.

We’ve obviously got some really big games coming up in the next few weeks, and I’ll be ready to go.

Auburn punter Arryn Siposs

“It’s pretty crazy this time a year, but obviously when footy’s not around and things like that, it’s certainly a lot quieter,” he said, “which does make things a little bit different compared to what it’s like back home.”

The game is a lot different, too. Siposs is no stranger to kicking the ball — the 75th overall pick in the 2010 AFL draft scored 22 goals in 28 games for the St Kilda Football Club of the Australian Football League — but about the only thing American and Australian football share is the name.

That’s where Prokick Australia came in. The program, developed in 2007, is designed to “help guide and transition Australian athletes to perform at the College/NFL level,” according to its website. Tom Hornsey (at Memphis), Tom Hackett and Mitch Wishnowsky (Utah), and Dickson (Texas) — the last five Ray Guy Award winners — all came through the program before Siposs did.

“It takes a little bit of time just to adjust to, dealing with that pressure all the time and the high intensity-type stuff. That took a little bit of time. But I really feel like I’ve gotten used to that now,” Siposs said of transitioning to American football. “Prokick Australia will do a lot for you do to make sure you’re in that right position before you get over here so it doesn’t take too long for you to adjust. They’ve been great, and it’s definitely put me in a good position to hopefully do my job when I’m here.”

The only thing Prokick couldn’t prepare Siposs for was what game day would be like. The punter asked his teammates — “the boys,” as he calls them — what he needed to be prepared for this past Saturday, and they told him about Tiger Walk and playing in front of more than 80,000 fans inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.

But it’s impossible to know what that’s like until you experience it for yourself.

“It was a bit surreal,” Siposs said.

He had only experienced something like that one time before, at the AFL’s Grand Final, which is “the equivalent of your Super Bowl,” and takes place at the 100,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Club. The biggest crowd he said he had every played in front of with St Kilda was about 65,000, but that was once.

No. 7 Auburn drew an announced crowd of 84,806 for its home opener this past Saturday, and that was just a 63-9 win over FCS Alabama State. There should be little doubt that it will fill the 87,451-seat Jordan-Hare Stadium for a crucial SEC opener against No. 13 LSU on Saturday.

“It was amazing,” he said. “The crowd was amazing, the fans were amazing, and it certainly makes it a lot easier when you’ve got people like that behind you that are supporting you all the way.”

Those experiences alone might have made Siposs’ big move worth the risk.

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