Batko: How to train a college football kicker

Only four weeks into the 2012 college football season, an obvious pattern is emerging: Most…

Penn State at Virginia

Penn State kicker Sam Ficken attempts a field goal against Virginia at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, September 8, 2012. He missed 4 of 5 attempts in Penn State’s 17-16 loss. (Christopher Weddle/Centre Daily Times/MCT)

Only four weeks into the 2012 college football season, an obvious pattern is emerging: Most college kickers just aren’t very good.

Examples of this trend abound across the nation:

Utah State nearly pulled off an upset of Wisconsin in week three, but its kicker missed a 37-yard field goal — considered a “chip shot” by most — that would have won the game in the final seconds.

Sophomore Penn State kicker Sam Ficken essentially cost his team the game in a Week 2 loss to Virginia when he missed four field goals — one as time expired with the Nittany Lions trailing by just one point — and had an extra point blocked.

And even the Pitt football team’s kicker, Kevin Harper, is just 4-for-7 on field-goal tries this season, with only one of those misses coming from 40 yards or more.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying kicking a football through two upright posts is an easy thing to do. I know I couldn’t do it.

But it is a skill that one can devote his life to and should be able to master fairly well. There’s no doubt that making field goals of 30, 40 or 50 yards or more takes some talent. Any kicker needs some semblance of natural leg strength to start with.

In the instance of a guy like Harper, though, who is more than capable in that category — he holds the high school state record in Ohio for longest field goal with a 61-yard kick and even made his own kicking trick-shot video featuring field goals from ridiculous lengths — the job is more mental- and accuracy-dependent than anything.

Which, to me at least, presents the question: Why the heck don’t more parents start training their children to be sure-thing field goal kickers from a young age?

We constantly hear about quarterbacks and even athletes outside of football such as golfers and gymnasts who were considered prodigies at young ages and spent their entire adolescent lives practicing their trade.

It couldn’t be that difficult to do something similar with a young kicker.

First off, you’ll have to convince your growing Adam Vinatieri that actually playing football — you know, like running, throwing, catching and tackling — is vastly overrated. In this day and age, with all attention paid to the concussions and serious injuries, it should be pretty easy to convince a kid that hanging out on the sidelines for most of the game yet still being considered a significant part of the team isn’t a bad option.

Things might get slightly trickier with the next phase of the process, however.

Most youths — whether they’re interested in football or not — probably won’t be thrilled with the idea of repeating the exact same exercise ad nauseam, which is essentially what kicking practice is. You set the ball on the tee, you back up seven yards and then you run up and try to kick the ball through the uprights.

As we’ve already established, this skill is incredibly important in football, but calling it tedious would not be a stretch.

Lastly, once you’ve managed to get past those two hurdles, you’d have to deal with the most pertinent aspect of field-goal kicking: mental toughness.

How can you simulate being counted on by 50 to 80 other grown men and thousands of fans to do the same exact thing that you’ve done thousands of times in practice but now at a critical moment and with infinitely more pressure?

Well, the short answer is, you can’t. But you can get creative.

Maybe tell your 10-year-old kicking protege that dessert will be withheld if the next field goal try is wide right. Or, if you’re more of a positive-reinforcement type, allowance will increase by 200 percent if your little David Akers Jr. can nail this one from 35 yards out.

This idea and these steps might sound drastic or perhaps even absurd. But hey, we have an epidemic on our hands here.

Staring at a 2-point deficit, with the ball on the opponent’s 35-yard line and three seconds left in the game, wouldn’t you feel much better if your team’s kicker has been preparing for this moment his entire life?

I know I would.

Write Brian bkb22@pitt.edu.