Notre Dame's Kickers: Kicked to the Curb

However, Burkhart has been perhaps the most disappointing scholarship player for his past three years at Notre Dame. His incendiary leg, which was widely praised coming out of high school after going seven for eight on 40+ yard field goals his junior year and managing to connect on a 53-yarder in the opening game of his senior campaign, earned him a spot as the only kicker named to the Indiana Top 50 all-state team in 2005.

Unfortunately, this same leg has been absolutely anemic since he arrived on campus. So weak in fact, that he didn’t see the field in his sophomore year.

After taking over for Bobby Renkes in the fourth game of the 2006 season against Michigan State, Burkhart performed admirably as a true freshman and completed the season as Notre Dame’s kickoff specialist. Mysteriously, Burkhart was withheld from action in his second year at Notre Dame, presumably due to unimpressive kickoffs on the practice field.

Unfortunately, it appears as though Burkhart was held out with good reason as his kickoffs this year have, more often than not, been missing the mark. There has been little to no evidence on the field of that formerly-impressive leg as Notre Dame is continually faced with opponents fielding the ball at around their own 10 yard line. This is an unacceptable result for a kicker at a big-time school.

Where do we go from here? Firstly, both Walker and Burkhart need to establish some—any—kind of consistency possible. If 30-yard field goals and kickoffs to the opposing five yard line are all that we can expect, let’s at least start to see some kind of regularity so we know what we can and cannot reasonably count on in game situations. I would consider this season a win for Walker if he were able to claw back to the .500 average on field goals from last year.

Likewise, if Burkhart were able to show that he can dependably send the ball to the five yard line with an occasional touchback, I would breathe a bit easier for a considerable portion of the game each Saturday. The last thing the team needs this season is more inconsistency and adversity on the offensive side of the football to battle through.

Secondly, Charlie Weis (and Rob Ianello for that matter) needs to put some honest-to-Touchdown-Jesus effort into recruiting a top-flight kicker. How hard a sell can it possibly be to a blue-chip high school kicker to commit to one of the year’s best recruiting classes, play in front of the entire nation every Saturday, get an Ivy league caliber education, and start immediately?

I’d be hard-pressed to think of a better situation for a two or three-star kicking recruit. It’s readily apparent that something needs to be done this recruiting season and that we can ill afford to hang the future of the Irish kicking game on the feet of walk-ons or unrecruited scholarship players.

Note: article photo courtesy of numstead.

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