Michael Dickson

Early life

Born in Sydney, Dickson first played association football in his youth before switching to Australian rules football at the age of 9. In his first year of playing Australian rules football, he earned the Golden Boot award for kicking the most goals in a season. He excelled in Australian football while playing for the University of New South Wales-Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs in the local Sydney AFL competition and was subsequently placed in the Sydney Swans talent academy as a teenager. He continued to play for UNSW-ES and the Swans reserves in the North East Australian Football League in an attempt to be drafted to a professional AFL team but was overlooked at the 2014 AFL draft. Dickson's Australian football career highlight occurred when he was chosen to play for the Swans in the 2014 NEAFL Grand Final. The Swans were defeated by a two-point margin in the final.

In 2015, at the age of 19, he moved to Melbourne to trial with Prokick Australia, a coaching program designed to help aspiring kickers and punters cross the Pacific and crack American football. Through his Prokick Australia experience, he was picked up by the University of Texas as a punter by head coach Charlie Strong.

College career

In his first season with the Longhorns, Dickson had 77 punts for 3,179 net yards for a 41.3 average in 2015; earned Honorable Mention All-Big 12 honors and was named to the Academic All-Big 12 Rookie Team. Against Kansas State, he recovered a bad snap and was able to get the punt off anyway, pinning KSU at its 8-yard line and for this was awarded Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week. Against Texas Tech, he averaged 51.0 ypp, the 6th highest single game average in school history. Despite his play, it was a tough season for Texas wherein the only highlights were upset victories over rivals #10 Oklahoma and #12 Baylor.

In the 2016 season, Dickson had 65 punts for 3,079 net yards for a 47.37 ypp average, a school record and the 3rd highest single-season average in Big 12 history. in the first game of the year, he set the school record for punting yards (330) and average ypp in a game (55.0) against Notre Dame. After the game against Texas Tech, in which he hada 51.0 yard average punt (8th highest in a game in school history), he was named Big 12 Special Teams player of the week for the 2nd time in his career. Against Baylor, he averaged 52.7 ypp, the 4th highest in school history at the time. In the TCU game, he kicked a then career-long 74 yard punt, the 6th longest in school history at the time. During the season he was named a Ray Guy Award finalist, the first in school history. At the end of the season he was a unanimous pick for the All-Big 12 team, named the Big 12 Special Teams player of the year, named to ESPN's All-Underclassman team and a 2nd (Sporting News, Football Writers Association of America and Phil Steele) and 3rd Team All-American (AP). The season was another down one for Texas, highlighted again by upset victories over #10 Notre Dame and #8 Baylor.

In 2017, Dickson had a school-record 84 punts for 3,984 net yards for a 47.43 average, which just barely topped his single-season school record for ypp from the year before. The 84 punts in season was also the 2nd most in Big 12 history. Against Iowa State, he kicked 7 punts with 4 of those for more than 50 yards and 2 for more than 60 yards and for his effort, he was named the Ray Guy punter of the week. He was again named Ray Guy Punter of the Week for his effort against Oklahoma, where he tied his own 55.0 ypp school record for punting average in a game. He had two other games that season, against Oklahoma State and Texas Tech where he averaged more than 50 yards per punt (50.9) which were tied for the 10th highest single-game punting average in school history at the time. Against TCU he kicked a career-long 76 yard punt, the 5th longest in school history and the 5th longest in the NCAA that year. He racked up numerous accolades on the year as he was named first team All-Big 12, Academic All-Big 12, the Big 12 Special Teams player of the year, the Big 12 Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a unanimous All-American. He also won the Ray Guy Award as the nation's best punter, the first Longhorn to do so. He was also named MVP of the 2017 Texas Bowl, the only punter in school history to be named MVP in a bowl game and only the 2nd punter to ever be named MVP in a major bowl game. Texas went 7-6 on the season and won the Texas Bowl, their first bowl game win since 2012.

In late December 2017, it was announced that Dickson would forgo his senior year at Texas in favor of the 2018 NFL draft.

He finished his career as the school's all-time leader in punting average (45.32 yards per punt), punts (226), and punting yards (10,242). His 45.32 yards per punt average was the 3rd highest average in Big 12 history at the time.