“He went on to do another hour of press, and he was actually fine after that. They managed to capture that one moment where he got asked about his family, and he clearly misses us, and he couldn’t control his emotions.”

Lee said the family hadn’t even seen the press conference when Archie messaged to assure his family he was OK.

“It happened quickly, and it kind of took us all by surprise when we watched it,” Lee said.

“The tears started, there was a bit of a family hug and we kind of sat in quiet and processed it a little bit … He sent us a message [to say] he’s OK, ignore the press conference, before we’d actually watched it, and obviously we watched it straight away.”

Wilson, who turns 19 on Thursday, signed with the Cornhuskers after being part of the Prokick Australia system – an organisation founded in 2007 by former Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn AFL player Nathan Chapman.

Like many Australians in the NFL, Wilson is a punter. The role of a punter is to kick the ball as close as possible to the opponent’s end zone without it entering the end zone. The average punter kicks four to five times a match, spending about one to three minutes on the field.

After grabbing the attention of Eckler, Wilson was put through the motions on FaceTime so the college coaches could see if he was the real deal.

“Coach Eckler, to my belief, is the only coach that had seen me kick, and I think that Prokick knew that his coaching and that his style was the right skill set for me,” Wilson said.

“They kind of worked it out a fair bit behind my back, and then coach John Smith just came up to me one morning and was like, ‘Hey Archie, you’re going to Nebraska’.

“He’d seen videos and then there was a live FaceTime. So, he’d seen me kick live, so I couldn’t just show him my highlights. He saw live where there was the chance of stuff-ups, so there wasn’t a fluke.”

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One of Wilson’s assets is that he can kick with both feet, a skill he said comes from playing Australian rules football.

“In Australia, playing Australian rules, it is a skill that can be useful if you’re running away from someone, it’s good to be able to kick it on both feet,” Wilson said.

“Some people, I’d say, give it a crack and have it as a skill to be able to use, as a weapon, but some people really ignore it. It’s not uncommon to see someone that can use both feet, but to use it at the level that’s kind of needed to be used in the college football system, it’s not too common.”