Let's Kick It

I have been a longtime proponent of the need for quality special teams personnel, especially in the placekicking and punting facets of the game. Recent ND coaches Davie and Willingham seemed resigned to wait for a diamond-in-the-rough All-American placekicker to get lost on their way to soccer practice and end up punching regular 50-yarders for the Irish gridders.

So it is encouraging that Charlie Weis included as part of his recruiting focus securing the services of a well-vetted kicker. It is expected that incoming freshman Ryan Burkhart may challenge for the placekicking duries in 2006, and may as well supplement the punting game.

In bidding farewell to 3-year starter DJ Fitzpatrick, it is appropriate to highlight some of his impressive acomplishments, many even more notable considering he had career starts in only 30 of ND's 49 games during his active tenure. Few will realize the impressive career which Fitzpatrick put together, for a variety of reasons. A coaching regime mired in controversy under Willingham saw few close games go the way of the Irish--5-5 in games decided by six points or less, whereas more negatively footnoted were the 20-to-30+ point losses under T-dub. In a similar vein, with Weis' arrival in 2005 the Irish offense got more headlines for multiple touchdown efforts, and little notice was given to the quiet consistency of the kicking game. Even more ironic, perhaps, was that a late-season injury for Fitzpatrick against Syracuse almost cost the Irish a BCS bid in their win over Stanford.

The skinny on his status in ND's record annals, updated to include all games for the 2005 season:

point-after (PAT) kicks made in a season (52, first)
point-after (PAT) kicks made in a career (103, fifth)
consecutive PATs made (61, streak ended vs. Stanford 11/26/05)
PATs attempted in a season (54, first)
PATs attempted in a career (107, sixth)
PAT percentage for a season (.971, eleventh)
PAT percentage for a career (.971, fourth)
points by kicking in a season (85, fourth)
points by kicking in a career (205, fifth)
points in a season (83, tenth)
overall career scoring (205, tenth)

Thanks for the quiet memories, DJ.