OXFORD – Ole Miss punter Oscar Bird is bound to stick out on the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Not just because of his 6-foot-4, 210-pound stature. He is also the only player on the No. 21 Rebels who will wear non-white cleats this season. Turns out it’s hard to find size 14 soccer cleats these days.
“The availability of soccer cleats in my size is pretty limited at times,” Bird said.
Bird is from Sydney, Australia, and played three years of professional Australian rules football – which he is quick to note is not the same as rugby – and has been kicking a ball since he was 5 or 6 years old. Rather than throwing like a quarterback might, the way to move the ball in Australian rules is to essentially punt it, he said.
Bird played for the Perth Football Club – he equated the league he played in to the minor leagues – and felt his time to make the jump to the next level was running out. He coincidentally ran into one of his peers who had made the trek from Australia to the United States to punt collegiately, and that friend told him of his time in a program known as Prokick Australia, which helps prospective players make the jump to American football.
So, at 22, Bird took the plunge.
“It was a no-brainer. It was an opportunity to come on an adventure,” Bird said. “And I’m here now. So, it’s been a pretty exciting journey so far.”
Bird will take over punting duties for three-year starter Fraser Masin – a Brisbane, Australia, native who averaged 43.5 yards per punt in his career. Masin was a Ray Guy Award semifinalist as a senior in 2024, when he averaged 46.6 yards per punt. Though Masin didn’t have enough punts to qualify, that average would have ranked fourth nationally. Ole Miss’ 36 total punts last year were the fewest in a single season since attempting 27 in the shortened 10-game 2020 campaign.
Bird said he wasn’t particularly aware of the intricacies of American football at first other than casually watching the Super Bowl. But once he decided to look into college football in the United States, Bird said he found “a pixel game” on his phone “that actually helped me understand the proper rules in a very elementary level” before fully diving in.
“I felt silly for the first few months of starting it because I wasn’t at the level that I would be with an Australian football,” Bird said. “But with time and just knowing that there’s been Australians who’ve come before me and done really well at it, you just stick at it.”
Three months into his time at Prokick Australia, Bird said he began getting looks from colleges, including Ole Miss. When he came to Oxford on a visit, he said it immediately felt like home. When he enrolled at Ole Miss in the winter, Masin was still in town and was able to share some knowledge from his own journey.
Though he’s still getting used to some differences between Australia and the South – he admits he had never seen grits or gumbo before – the transition to the United States has been smooth, Bird said.
“I’ve loved it. It’s been great,” Bird said. “ … Australia’s on the other side of the world, but there’s a lot of similarities. We speak the same language, eat similar foods, things like that.
“ … To be honest, the change has been really, really fun. And that’s what I came here for, to play football and have a life experience like that.”
Perkins ranked in ESPN’s top-100
Ole Miss junior linebacker Suntarine Perkins is ranked No. 51 in ESPN’s top-100 players heading into the 2025 college football season. Perkins is the lone Rebel representative on the list.
The Raleigh, Mississippi, native notched a career-best 10.5 sacks as a sophomore in 2024 and helped Ole Miss finish second nationally in scoring defense and lead the nation in sacks per game and tackles-for-loss.
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