There’s been a lot of talk lately about Kickin’ It.  No, I don’t mean like this:

Although, I still need to NetFlix this one - Malibu’s Most Wanted (”Tiz-ails!”) is classic, so this has to be good.  I digress…

I mean this kind of kicking:

I’ve seen various discussions about Walker as a kicker, and more and more heated discussions about him since Charlie reaffirmed him as the teams FG kicker once again (although my guess is that ND goes for it on 4th down with any play outside of a 30-yarder).

Some people say it’s all in his head, some say it’s his form.  I say it’s both.

Some of you know that I was on the ND practice squad for a year under Davie as a walk-on.   I didn’t kick in HS, but I was an all-state soccer player that got cut by the ND Men’s Team my freshman year.  My cousin was a kicker in college and was in and out of the pros for a while, and he taught me over one summer.  I came in and out-kicked the encumbent scholarship guy, but eventually got cut because Davie brought in another schollie guy that also ended up being mediocre (don’t get me started on Davie - moron!).  Anyway, let’s just say I know a little about kicking, and a little about kicking at ND.  Especially compared to the average fan.

Anyway, there are 2 things going on that I see.  First, Walker’s fundamentals suck.  SUCK.

Walker makes PATs all the time, though, so they can’t be that bad can they?  Wrong.  PATs are so close that the form doesn’t matter close to as much.  As long as you can get the ball up and over the line, your chances of missing are slim.  But once you back off a bit, and allow the distance to carry through bad form, all thell breaks loose (like 1 of 7 loose). 

The main issue is that Walker doesn’t approach the ball square to his target.  A lot of people think that when you’re on the hash that you ‘aim’ the ball one way or another to get it through the up-rights.  This is 100% wrong.  When kicking at an angle, you’re supposed to do everything EXACTLY THE SAME.  The only difference is that you shift the entire operation (holder too) in a slightly different direction so that you’re all aimed straight ahead again, just not parallel to the sidelines.  So rather than lining up straight and trying to ‘aim’ and kick more left or right, you just line up more left or right. Make sense?  Good.

So that’s problem number 1.  The aiming thing seems to be happening. 

But even more fundamental is that the approach isn’t square on even when we’re in the center of the field.  Walker comes at the ball at too strong of an angle and tries to rely on kicking his leg across his body to bring the ball back.  The problem with this is that it doesn’t allow for easy muscule memory.  If he doesn’t approach at the same angle, if he doesn’t kick across his body enough, if he follows through too far in one direction rather than the other…blah blah blah.  In the end, this approach results in 1-7.  The way you’re supposed to kick is almost straight on.  The kicker’s plant foot should be next to he ball and facing DIRECTLY toward the target.  The kicker’s body should, at the end of the kick, be headed straight toward the center of the target.  The hips open up and the leg comes straight through the ball, and follows through straight toward the target.  In this way it’s much less about the leg and much more about the entire body kicking the ball.   (Walker clearly has a strong leg, but he’d have even more power in this way.  And more importantly, he’d actually be somewhat accurate.)  Once you get this form down, all kicking is is repeating that process over and over and over so your body just CAN’T forget it.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a 10 yarder or a 60 yarder, you never change the way you kick.  A PAT should look like it was gonna go for 50 every time if that’s how you always hit it.  There’s no difference if you’re on one hash or the other, in a wind storm or a beautiful day.  The only thing you adjust is the line of site to the target (e.g. shifting a few degrees in your operation’s aim to the right for a right to left wind, etc.)

Polian and Weis are in charge of Special Teams, but it doesn’t seem like they know this stuff.  They’ve had to have gotten a kicking specialist in at some point, though, so somebody should know it.  And if Walker knows it, then he just needs tons of repetitions to get it right.  Since he’s good in practices he may need to just learn to be consistent in the games, I don’t know.  But something needs righted.

The other issue is mental.  Kickers get in slumps.  The pressure, the mental aspect gets in their heads and all of a sudden they start thinking.  Am I planting too far back? Am I angled correctly?  If I kick it low, will it get blocked?  This, in and of itself, isn’t a problem.  The problem is that this causes the kicker to try all kinds of things to ‘fix’ the misses.  So he adjusts this, then that, then something else.  Before long, he no longer knows how to kick.  Literally, his body has lost that muscle memory that made him good (decent?) in the first place. 

So the solution?  Walker has to forget about all this stuff.  Forget about the misses, the boos, the confusion and all the recommendations he’s getting on how to correct things.  He has to have a shorter memory than a QB that just tossed 3 picks.   He needs to get back to the basics - get that form back that helps him make kicks (and get that form right if it’s not - square to the target, straight ahead plant, open the hips, kick straight through the ball with the body, head down, etc) and just repeat.  Repeat repeat repeat until his body can’t do anything but what’s right.  And then never ever change that regardless of down, distance, opponent, field, whatever.  Never. Change. It.

Then, just kick it kid.  That’s it.  Just kick it.

And remember holders, LACES OUT!

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• Bid-ness Is Good
• God Bless this Kid. And Please God Make Him Kick Straight.
• Tausch is Kickin It. Word.