Neal: Gophers kicker Dragan Kesich will be fine; he just needs another chance

Dragan Kesich missed just four field goals last season and was named Big Ten kicker of the year. That makes him one of the best in college football.

However, during last Thursday’s season opener against North Carolina, Kesich missed two field goals — including what would’ve been a game-winning 47-yarder. Don’t worry though, Kesich will be all right.

It’s situations like this why you wish football was like baseball and played every day. That way, Kesich can quickly return to the field, plant one through the uprights and remind everyone that he’s the weapon the Gophers need him to be. But Kesich has to wait 10 days, before Saturday’s game against Rhode Island, to move forward. Managers like to put their relievers back on the mound as soon as possible following a poor outing.

Everyone in a locker room is willing to take the blame when a team loses a close game. But Kesich — to mix in another baseball term — was the one who blew the save. In this case, a save meant bailing out the Gophers at the end of a game during which the offense sputtered at times and the defense had trouble containing Tar Heels running back Omarion Hampton.

Kesich struck the ball well but pulled his kick to the right. From the same distance and the same side of the field, he buried the game-winning kick to walk off Nebraska in last year’s season opener. Thursday’s effort went down as a spectacular blown save, which was no fault of his own. Someone with an itchy trigger finger in the Huntington Bank Stadium control room set off celebratory fireworks as if the kick was good.

He had to walk off the field as bombs burst overhead. How do you forget that moment? Teammates were quick to rush to him with support.

The Gophers were the only one of the 18 teams in the Really Big Ten to lose during opening week. The Gophers have little room for error if they want to return to a bowl game. So it was a big spot to be in.

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck, during his Monday news conference, agreed with the baseball analogy, pointing out how his players can’t wait for the Rhode Island game to correct the mistakes they made against North Carolina.

When asked about Kesich specifically, Fleck said, “I talked in the team realm because, yeah, he fits within the team. So I know they all wanted to get back on the field and I know he would, too. We came out for practice [Sunday] and he’s the first one out there. So that’s what you expect from Dragan. And he had a great day [Sunday].”

Unfortunately, Kesich kicks in the state of Minnesota, where there’s a history of crushing misses. In particular, there was a Vikings playoff game on the same field, then called TCF Bank Stadium, in which Blair Walsh missed a 27-yard field goal with 26 seconds left in a loss to Seattle in January of 2016. Kesich’s first miss was from 27 yards out on the same side of the field. It was much closer than Walsh’s, which was headed toward Uptown.

I will not torment Vikings fans reading this with other unforgettable misses. But I know you know.

Kesich, from Oak Creek, Wis., will move on. He has too big of a personality and is too ebullient of a fellow to let the miss linger. He’s come too far in his Gophers career — he spent two seasons as a kickoff specialist, ranking third in the nation with an 83.1% touchback success rate in 2022 — to become an NFL prospect. Now he’s booming 54-yard field goals, like he did last season against Michigan and Ohio State.

The Gophers don’t have a kicking problem. Kesich is blessed with a powerful leg capable of striking from 60 yards. He has developed his accuracy and is nationally recognized. He will win more games for the Gophers than miss big kicks. He might have gotten his only two misses all season out of the way on Thursday.

When he lines up for a kick, you expect the ball to split the uprights.

Kesich will be all right.

“Move on,” Fleck said. “I know he will.”