If you’re trotting out three kickers on a single Saturday, it probably means you have no kickers.
That was the case for Notre Dame as continued struggles to put the ball through the goal posts led the Irish to use three place kickers against Boston College.
In total, Noah Burnette and Marcello Diomede both shanked extra points while Erik Schmidt missed Notre Dame’s lone field goal attempt.
“As far as the kicking situation, we owe it to the team to be able to make extra points if we're going to attempt it,” head coach Marcus Freeman said. “If we don't think we can make an extra point, we shouldn't attempt it. I have confidence that we're going to be able to put the ball through the uprights from a certain length. We'll figure out how far that line is. It usually changes every week.”
Going into the season, Burnette appeared to be the guy for the Irish, but a right hip injury has sidelined him for multiple games and has seemingly hurt his ability to be effective since. The Irish then turned to Schmidt, who is 12-for-13 on extra points but has missed both of his field goal attempts.
Saturday brought Notre Dame’s kicking struggles to the forefront of issues to attack for Freeman, and at this point the head coach believes it's becoming a mental issue.
“As I evaluate some of the issues in our kicking game, it's both physical and mental, but I think it's starting to turn towards the mental side,” Freeman said. “What does that mean? We got to put more work into the mental side of things, right? I can hear the answer. You could say I'm not a kicking coach, but I'm responsible for it. You can tell me the answers, but everybody can identify some of the issues. How do we fix it? What's the plan of attack? That's what we've spent a lot of time in the past 48 hours.”
Freeman and the staff, most notably Joey Ramaeker, the director of Notre Dame's sports psychology program, have been attempting to address any mental issues the kickers are facing on gamedays.
“We've been working really hand-in-hand with Joey Ramaeker, our sports psychologist,” Freeman said. “He meets with the specialists weekly, but we need to do more and equip them with the right tools and practice the right tools so they can utilize them in crucial moments. It's one thing to hear different ideas of what you can do, but if you don't practice them and work at them, you can't use them. You can't use them when they matter the most. You've got to really work at them.”
But no matter how well the week of practice goes for the kicking unit, lining up for a kick in a stadium on Saturdays can’t be replicated, no matter how loud Freeman screams.
“We can try to simulate it in practice,” Freeman said. “I can yell and scream at them. That's a way to simulate pressure that your coach is going to yell and scream at you, but that's not even close to what's really the pressure.
“That's why I say a lot of it is mental. There's a technique to it, right? There's a technique to kicking a football, but there's a human element when all of a sudden you're out there on Saturday that can mess with your mind, mess with your head and get you to revert back to a technique that isn't producing consistent results. We have to really have a plan of attack for the human element that happens on Saturday.”
Freeman wouldn’t confirm if Burnette would start on Saturday against Navy, or if the Irish would turn back to Schmidt or even Diomede.
“We'll figure it out during the week,” Freeman said.
If Notre Dame can’t correct its issues on special teams, don’t expect the cavalry to arrive in the form of a Notre Dame soccer player. Per NCAA rules, once a team sets its 105-man roster, it can’t make any additions.
“It's an NCAA rule that before the season you set your rosters at 105. There's guys that you can declare grandfathered in that were previously on your roster. But once your rosters are set, you can't add anybody to your roster. That's why we can't do anything about that right now.”
