With the graduation of Jake Moody - and his possible drafting this spring - I wanted to take a look back at the top field goal kickers in Michigan history.
- 69 - Jake Moody (2018-2022)
- 64 - Garrett Rivas (2003-2006)
- 63 - Remy Hamilton (1993-1996)
- 57 - Mike Gillette (1985-1988)
- 45 - Brendan Gibbons (2010-2013)
- 42 - Quinn Nordin (2017-2020)
- 39 - J.D. Carlson (1989-1991)
- 37 - Kenny Allen (2012-2016)
- 31 - Ali Haji Sheikh (1979-1982)
- 29 - Bob Bergeron (1981-1984)
Interestingly - to me, at least - some of the best years in modern Michigan history are not represented here, such as 1997-2002. That was right in the middle of the Lloyd Carr years. Maybe Michigan was too busy scoring touchdowns with Anthony Thomas, David Terrell, etc. to be kicking many field goals.
Where's Mike Lantry? ;-)
ReplyDeleteHe missed the list ... wide left.
DeleteRoanman
"No good. No good. No good." - Bob Ufer, 1976 Purdue game.
DeleteThe kicking was very wonky in that part of the Carr era after Remy Hamilton left. There was big excitement about Hayden Epstein but guys like Baker, Feely, and Del Verne held him off from putting up big stats. There was a lot of rotation and competition. Which sounds good in theory but the results where pretty unexceptional compared to the guys at the top of the list and things generally felt unsettled if you paid attention to kickers.
ReplyDeletePerhaps nobody represents the wonkiness more than Kraig Baker who punted 44 times in 1994 and then just once afterwords even though he was the starting kicker in 1997. Then as a senior he was a backup in 1998 to Feely. Jeff Del Verne also had more kicks as a junior and a senior (in 2000). It all felt very random.
Feely of course had a long NFL career, but was unexceptional in his 5 years at Michigan, being the regular FG kicker only in 98. Epstein was drafted somehow in 02 but didn't do much in the NFL. He wore a lot of hats in his Michigan career but hit only 63% of his career field goals (Moody, Allen, Rivas, Hamilton, Feely and Gibbons were all over 75%). For a kicker, Epstein had exceptionally high hopes and hype. IIRC he was the #1 kicking recruit and supposed to lock things down from the outset. He didn't really deliver on the hype, particularly on FGs but was a decent college punter and hit 74/77 extra points.