Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/420483
people are going to get mad at you." With help from then-coach Bill O'Brien and his sta;, who assured him the day a=er the Virginia game that they would work to 9x any problems in his kicking mechanics, Ficken was able to tune out the fan reaction. It was harder for his par- ents back home in Indiana – "They were very upset for me," he said – but they, too, understood that the most important thing was to give him the space he needed to deal with the situation and keep moving forward. The hysteria eventually subsided. And while it helped Ficken develop a thick skin, the real blessing in disguise was con- tained in the :ood of supportive messages that he received. There were more than 400 of those, he said, and among the peo- ple who reached out to him were a number of former Penn State kickers, including Brett Conway, Craig Fayak and Robbie Gould. Those connections helped put him on a path to becoming one of the most successful kickers in Penn State history. "To go through that experience made me work extremely hard to get where I wanted to be," Ficken said. "Also, it enabled me to work with some really great people, Robbie Gould especially. Had I not done that, I don't know if he would have per- sonally reached out to me." Gould, a former Penn State kicker who had gone on to become an All-Pro with the Chicago Bears, contacted Ficken a=er the Virginia game to cheer him up and help him re9ne his fundamentals. The work paid immediate dividends, as Ficken went on to make 13 of his 9nal 16 9eld goal attempts that year, the last of which propelled Penn State to a sea- son-ending overtime victory against Wisconsin. During the past three seasons, he has fre- quently cited Gould's expert- ise as one of the main reasons for his turnaround. Said Fick- en, "He's been so instrumental to my suc- cess." Ficken is having his best season as a senior. A two-time recipient of the Big Ten's Special Teams Player of the Week award, he went into Penn State's game against Temple on Nov. 15 with 49 career 9eld goals, third-best in school history behind only Fayak (50) and Kevin Kelly (78). With two 9eld goals against Indiana, he tied Lydell Mitchell for 9=h place on Penn State's all-time scoring chart with 246 points. One thing Ficken hasn't done for Penn State this fall is punt. He took some reps THE FICKEN FILE PAT FG YR M-A M-A PCT. 1-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50+ LG 2011 1-1 1-2 50.0 0-0 0-0 0-0 1-2 0-0 43 2012 39-41 14-21 66.7 0-1 8-9 6-7 0-4 0-0 38 2013 41-42 15-23 65.2 0-0 4-4 6-10 4-7 1-2 54 2014* 18-18 19-22 86.4 0-0 6-7 7-9 6-6 0-0 48 CAREER 99-102 49-68 72.1 0-1 18-20 19-26 11-19 1-2 54 * Includes statistics through Penn State's first nine games.