6 September 2024
The similarities were striking, and so was the difference.
For the second straight season opener, Gophers kicker Dragan Kesich lined up for a last-second field goal attempt. Each spot were 47 yards out. Good snaps and holds. Both attempts flew into the open west end of Huntington Bank Stadium. A win was on the line each time.
While Kesich’s left-hash attempt against Nebraska was his standard draw through the posts to start the 2023 season, the fifth-year senior’s right-hash attempt a week ago against North Carolina flew wide right.
Elation, followed by dejection.
Kesich won Big Ten kicker of the year in 2023, making 23 of 27 field goals. After Nebraska, his highlight was producing four field goals for all 12 points in the Gophers’ 12-10 rivalry win over Iowa last October.
After last week’s game, Kesich’s teammates were trying to pick him up and head coach P.J. Fleck didn’t have to look far, pointing to how a slew of other errors from the U defense and offense played roles in the defeat.
“What I love about this team is they care. They care so much,” Fleck said on his KFAN radio show. “He was devastated. You can imagine (with) how you (fans) felt. That’s how he felt. If you have any empathy, you can put yourself in those shoes. He is such a great kid. He has won so many games for us.”
Win or lose, Gophers players lock arms and face the marching band for one final song before heading into the locker room. Kesich’s friends and U captains Derik LeCaptain and Cody Lindenberg flanked him at that moment.
Lindenberg didn’t hesitate on what his message was for Kesich.
“ ‘I love you,’ ” Lindenberg relayed. “It’s that simple. None of that game is on him. There are plenty of plays defensively, offensively, special teams. It’s a team effort. There is no one play that loses you a game.
“I told him right when we got off the field, ‘Hey, don’t even think about that right now. Keep your head up. There are plenty of things that could have gone a different way.”
Fleck had multiple chats with Kesich: immediately following the game, the day after and again in Fleck’s corner office in the Larson Football Performance Center.
“But it wasn’t still harping on what had happened,” Fleck told the Pioneer Press. “It’s about moving forward. It’s about how we can be better. It’s about solutions.”
Fleck said Kesich, a lefty, doesn’t have a preference on which hash he kicks from — even if results from different hashes produced different results.
“Everyone was (saying), ‘You should put it on this hash,’ ” Fleck said on the radio Tuesday. “He doesn’t care. He doesn’t tell me to put it in the middle, put it on the right, put it on the left. The kid just loves to kick from anywhere. He just wants to kick it.”
Fleck said special teams coordinator Bob Ligashesky pinpointed Kesich’s “toe was a little bit more closed than open, the way he needed it.”
But Fleck didn’t want to dwell on mechanics for fear of giving Kesich a case of the yips. Kesich missed a 27-yarder off the right post in the first quarter against the Tar Heels and made a 30-yarder in the middle of the field. in the forth quarter.
What the Gophers want is for Kesich to move on, starting at 11 a.m. Saturday against Rhode Island at Huntington Bank Stadium.
Soon after the North Carolina loss, LeCaptain and other teammates took Kesich to Taco Bell for some comfort food.
“I think that is the way that young people get over it,” Fleck said. “You just have a Cheesy Gordita Crunch and I guess you are OK.”
Later on, Fleck brought up to Kesich a famous line from the TV show “Ted Lasso.” During one episode, soccer coach Lasso asked one of his struggling players, Sam Obisanya, if he knew what is the happiest animal on Earth.
“A goldfish (because they) have a 10-second memory,” Lasso said. “Be a goldfish, Sam.”
Be a goldfish, Dragan.
“Once it’s done, you can’t change it,” Fleck said. “So now it’s all (in) your mind. Just go to making sure he’s OK, and then, ‘Let’s go to solutions.’ And (Kesich is) the same way.”
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