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The quirky, confusing and unusual kicking rotation Jim Harbaugh has implemented at Michigan
By Dave Holcomb
Published:
In his typical quirky fashion, Jim Harbaugh has a unique strategy for how he plans to use his kickers in the early part of the season, and he shared it during his press conference Tuesday.
Well, he tried to share it, but most people probably walked away confused.
Harbaugh explained that kickers Jake Moody and Quinn Nordin were dead even in the kicking competition this summer, so the two kickers are going to split game reps. How they will split them gets a bit confusing.
“All through training camp, the kickers were practically dead even,” Harbaugh said according to All About Ann Arbor. “They were like one kick apart, one made field goal apart, with the same amount of attempts — over 50 attempts. We decided they were dead even and the plan was this past game, and I think it will be going forward this week as well, depending on practice — the plan was the kicker that was one kick ahead was Jake Moody. He would kick the first field goal, and then we would rotate every field goal between the two kickers — Jake then Quinn.
“I threw one little caveat in there that if it was the field goal kicker’s turn to kick the field goal on that particular drive, he’d also kick the extra point,” Harbaugh said. “But if we had three extra points in a row, that would constitute a field goal and then the other kicker — it would be his turn.”
If you’re scratching your head, you aren’t alone.
But essentially, this is how Michigan’s kicking situation will work — the kicker with the best week of practice get the first drive, and if he kicks a field goal, it’s the next guy’s turn. If the first guy only kicks an extra-point, he gets the next drive until he kicks a field goal or three straight PATs.
It sounds a little weird, but Harbaugh assured the media Tuesday that the kickers knew ahead of time whether or not it was their drive to kick.
It will be interesting to see how this continues to work next week when Michigan faces Army at noon ET.