Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Up For Grabs Special teams jobs remain open battles as season opener approaches F By Dan Murphy or the second time in as many years at Notre Dame, a recordsetting kicker is in jeopardy of losing his starting job. Junior Kyle Brindza kicked 23 field goals last season, beating John Carney's program record by two successful attempts. It helped, of course, that Brindza had 31 chances to connect, also the most ever by a Notre Dame kicker. Then a sophomore, Brindza took over in the second game of the season for senior Nick Tausch, who was nursing a pulled groin muscle. Brindza missed his first career field goal attempt against Purdue, but rallied to hit the game winner in the fourth quarter and make several other clutch kicks throughout the year. He tied Tausch's school record of five field goals in one game to help carry the Irish past USC in the regular-season finale. With that type of résumé, it seemed unlikely that anyone would be able to unseat Brindza this season. But Tausch has been through this drill before. He set a program record by making 14 consecutive field goals as a freshman back in 2009. Another injury gave walk-on David Ruffer the opportunity to push his way past Tausch on the depth chart the following year. Now in his fifth season in South Bend, Tausch is making headway at regaining his starting spot for the second time in his career. "I really wanted an open competition between Tausch and Brindza for kicking, although we all know Brindza did a heck of a job last year," head coach Brian Kelly said two weeks into fall camp. "I wasn't going to bring him back [for a fifth season] unless I gave him a chance to unseat Brindza." While Brindza (6-1, 236 pounds) has the stronger leg at first glance, Tausch made the longer kicks during the very brief glimpses of that competition that have been open to the media in August. Tausch booted a successful 45-yard attempt that had plenty of room above the goal post crossbar in one practice. Minutes later, Brindza missed his one attempt of the day from the 35-yard range. Kelly said the team collected an abundance of data on the two kickers during the early stages of training camp in what has been a close battle for the starting job. In the case of a dead heat, the placekicking duties will most likely fall to Tausch because that gives Brindza the benefit of focusing solely on taking over as the team's punter for the first time on the college level.