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| Brendan Gibbons (#34) |
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 230 lbs.
High school: West Palm Beach (FL) Cardinal Newman
Position: Kicker
Class: Redshirt junior
Jersey number: #34
Last year: I ranked Gibbons #76 and said he would be the backup kicker. He started at placekicker, hitting 13/17 field goals and 54/55 extra points.
Kickers at Michigan have been notoriously difficult to predict. Gibbons has been in the doghouse at times and just plain inaccurate at others. So last season I thought he would be relegated to backup duty while freshman Matt Wile picked up some duties and borderline All-Big Ten caliber punter Will Hagerup challenged for some kickoff duties. Wile took over kickoffs and did a good job, Hagerup had a poor season, and Gibbons came out of nowhere to be a hero in the Sugar Bowl against Virginia Tech, with some other notable performances against Ohio State and Nebraska.
I have no idea how Gibons will perform in 2012, but if he can replicate his 2011 season, this might be an accurate ranking for him. Both the offense and the defense could take a step back in 2012 with the losses of key players on each side (David Molk, Junior Hemingway, and Kevin Koger on offense; Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen on defense). Gibbons performed well in tight games last season, and I think there will be some tighter games in 2012. Hopefully he can continue his improvement and be a hero in a few more games.
Prediction: Starting placekicker
If Gibbons and Hagerup perform up to their potential then I think we should red shirt Wile. This would create a two year gap between him and the other two - thus giving us a very good kicker in '14 and '15. Much better than wasting a year of his eligibility merely to have a surplus scholarship kicker this year.
ReplyDeleteToo high. This is a rank deserving of an average or better college kicker with a walk-on backup, but Gibbons is a below-average kicker with a quality backup. I think Wile, as a backup punter (or potential starter), backup kicker, kickoff specialist, AND long-distance field goal kicker, has more value to the team. An injury to him would be more damaging than Gibbons going down.
ReplyDeleteThis is still the same guy who lost the job to walk-ons in 2009 and 2010...and not even good walk-ons. He's 14 for 22 in his career despite most of his attempts being short-distance. He was 2/5 in 40-49 yard field goals last year (2/7 career) and the coaches won't let him even attempt a 50+ yarder. It appears that he can now reliably make extra points and 20 and 30 yard field goals, which is nice, but it's not clear that his backup can't do the same thing. It's not something that most scholarship-kickers struggle with.
The Sugar Bowl was great, and Gibbons resiliency is a nice story, but he's still a low skill player. He fits a niche specialty and does that job pretty well, but it's not a hard job.
Our starting DE, our nickelback and 3rd best CB, and our 3rd down back are more important to this team than a short-distance kicking specialist with a talented backup.
I guess the argument would be that Gibbons has gotten a lot better recently - and making 2 of his last 3 from 40+ would support that argument, but I don't know of any examples of kickers making monumental leaps in skill. The leaps generally come in opportunity. Your leg strength generally is what it is and all you can do is overcome mental obstacles if they arise (like Hagerup seemed to encounter last year.) That's not an issue for Gibbons so I doubt he can be more successful than he was last year. I don't doubt that he can be less successful.
I don't think our 3rd down back is more important than our starting kicker. Running back is an overrated position, especially if he's only on the field for 1/3 of the offensive plays or less. And our starting DE would be more important, except he's a sophomore position-switcher who's a little undersized and has a quite capable backup (Frank Clark) if the backup can keep himself on the field.
DeleteThe 2010 version of Gibbons would not be this high. The 2011 version was pretty good, and since I think we'll have a lot of close games this year, Gibbons is going to be even more important than he was last season (and he was pretty important, since he helped make the difference in a couple games).
What the HELL are you talking about, Lank? Gibbons had a pretty darn good season kicking and Wile hasn't attempted a single field goal in college. Your post is entirely delusional. There are plenty of kickers who have gotten better over their career, and even if Gibbons is an exception, there is zero evidence to suggest regression.
DeleteKickers are always important in close games, and therefore important overall. I don't know why you think we'll have more close games this year than last, but Gibbons has a very capable backup and for the rest of these rankings that logic moves a player down.
DeleteI don't know what has you guys so impressed with Gibbon's 2011 season. He was 57th in FGs made and 37th in the country in FG% - that sounds pretty good except for the fact that he attempted only 5 that were longer than 40 yards, making just 2. His season high was 43 yards. So, basically, he's a decent bet to make a FG if Michigan can get the ball inside the red-zone, but otherwise, the offense should probably go for it. Most kickers will look good if asked to only hit short kicks. Gibbons was OK, but he wasn't asked to do much.
He was solid from short range - That's the good news. The bad news is that he still can't make long ones and the two years before that he was so awful as to be unplayable. If that's the 22nd best/most important player on the team, this team is in serious trouble.
It's true that Wile is unproven as a FG kicker, but most scholarship kickers can do what Gibbons did last year. I don't see any reason to think Wile can not produce similar results if placed in the same role, given that he's proven adept at other kicking duties.
Lanko is right. I don't think Hoke was blowing smoke when he said the kickers were pretty even going into the season last year. Plus Gibbons committed an uncalled penalty on that game winner versus VTech and missed his easy one in the spring game this year.
Delete6'1" 231? Beefy!
ReplyDelete