Blue and Gold Illustrated

Nov. 24, 2014 Issue

Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football

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brought in fifth-year senior Alex Wul- feck from Wake Forest to handle short- distance punts. Brindza's cannon of a leg routinely proved too strong for coffin-corner situations. He learned his lesson in time for this year. "Now I don't care if it just goes for 40 yards, I just want to make it unreturn- able," he said. "That's all I want to be. As you get older, those mechanics have to change a little bit." Now the Notre Dame record-holder for most career field goals, passing John Carney's 51 and standing at 54 heading into Notre Dame's contest against Northwestern (Brindza also holds the Irish career record for at- tempts, his 74 besting Carney's 69), Brindza needed time to develop con- sistency when aiming at the uprights. "One of our bigger competitions, he was knocked out very first in a dou- ble-elimination," Kornblue said. "If you miss two field goals, you're out. He missed an extra point and then he made the next 25- or 30-yard field goal, but then he missed the very next one. That was when he was a junior or a se- nior. I think he had already committed. "His consistency on field goals, es- pecially off the ground, just was not there yet. That's another area where he continually improved and is still get- ting better." Brindza's 11-of-17 performance through nine games in 2014 may not seem all that consistent, but keep in mind it includes two misses against Stanford that were largely the result of poor holds. He nailed his third at- tempt against the Cardinal, providing Notre Dame's winning margin in a 17-14 victory. Though fans may have doubted him and the field goal unit that chilly October day, Brindza's ever- present determination never wavered. "Whenever you mess up, throw it out the window. Just prove everyone wrong," he said. "You're going to have fans, 'Oh, he misses. I don't trust him.' I don't care. You can trust me or not trust me. I'm just going to do what I do. What I do is have confidence in myself that I'm able to put the ball through the uprights." Each time Brindza uses the window analogy, he prefaces it with a sentence about odds being against him. Doctors told him he might not walk. Doctors told his mother he shouldn't play con- tact sports. Even Kornblue told him he was not consistent enough. From Canton, a Detroit suburb, Brin- dza took each piece of doubt, wonder and constructive criticism and filed it away. When he's on the field, none of those from his past face the specialized task he does. Granted, on field goals Brindza relies on a snap to get the ball to the holder who will hopefully have the pigskin aligned before Brin- dza reaches it. On punts and kickoffs, he relies on a coverage team to chase down the returner. But when it comes to "foot meet ball," he's on his own. "You're going out there and the pres- sure is on you," he said. "You feel the pressure is all on you, so you've got to put it on yourself. That's how I feel out there. If I mess up a kick, it's all on me." The senior has seldom messed up many kicks. His determination made sure of that, even if — or possibly es- pecially because — its roots trace to an unlikely source. ✦

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