College Kickers Save the Day—and the Playoff Hopes—of Michigan, TCU

With their teams’ seasons on the line, Griffin Kell and Jake Moody delivered. Now, the Wolverines can look toward Ohio State.

College kickers are their own punchline, with their own hashtag that is invoked on social media weekly. They are maddeningly mortal and endearingly human, capable of missing many kicks that are routinely made at the NFL level. But college kickers can be heroes, too, and a pair of them rescued their teams’ undefeated seasons within minutes of each other Saturday afternoon.

At 3:12 p.m. ET, Griffin Kell sent a 40-yard field goal into the Waco air and through the uprights at McLane Stadium to lift TCU past Baylor. At 3:33 p.m., Jake Moody lofted a 35-yard field goal into the Ann Arbor air with a ripping wind at his back to save Michigan against Illinois. Under massive pressure, the kids got it done.

“Legend,” Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh said of Moody, who made four field goals on the day and became the school’s career leader in that category. “I’ve been watching Michigan football since I was a kid. Pretty decent historian of Michigan football, and I am nominating him for legendary status.”

Moody went 4-for-4 on field goals agains the Fighting Illini :: Paul Sancya/AP

TCU coach Sonny Dykes is probably ready to make a similar nomination for Kell. “Griffin just came in and knocked it down,” he said.

Both the Horned Frogs and Wolverines are now 11–0, moving a step closer to the College Football Playoff. Tough sledding is still ahead of them, but the mission remains intact by the thinnest of margins. Everything could have been lost if their kickers hadn’t come through.

For Michigan, this was an extremely rare flirtation with defeat in a season of dominance. For TCU, this was just another Saturday on the cliff’s edge. There was a thriller nobody saw coming and one that was completely predictable.

Kell, a fourth-year player from nearby Arlington, Texas, had the tougher last-second job of the two clutch kickers. He and the TCU field goal unit had to hustle on the field in a fire-drill setting as the clock was ticking toward zero, get lined up and get the play off. “That looked like chaos, but we practice it every Thursday exactly like that,” Dykes said.

Kell is the same college kicker whose missed extra point in the third quarter landed TCU in this predicament—trailing by two points and in need of a miraculous last drive. Quarterback Max Duggan willed the Frogs downfield into range, and then it was up to Kell to run onto the field, set himself without the benefit of measuring out his steps and deliver the biggest kick of his life.

TCU now is the first team since Colgate in 1975 to win seven straight games by 10 points or fewer. The Frogs have had to come back over and over during that stretch, but this was their scariest predicament yet.

Down 28–20, they scored a touchdown but couldn’t convert the two-point try. That meant they had to stop Baylor, get the ball back and make another drive. It all came together like clockwork, even with some risky time management by Dykes.

For Michigan, the complicating factors kept coming like the relentless breeze that chilled Big House spectators to the bone. This was a testament to patience and perseverance for a team that has only won one game by fewer than 13 points. Harbaugh coached a great game, calmly managing the elements, a wave of injuries and playing from behind for much of the second half.

After flashing downfield for a touchdown on their opening possession, the Wolverines were in for a slog the rest of the way. Injuries mounted, most notably and alarmingly to star running back Blake Corum. He came into the game fifth nationally in rushing (134.9 yards per game) and tied for second in rushing TDs (17). He had 95 yards from scrimmage in the first quarter, but suffered a left knee injury in the second quarter and went straight to the locker room. Corum came out from halftime on the run and tried to play, but only got one more carry and two more snaps before being done for the day.

“It was bothering him,” Harbaugh said, but declined to offer additional information about the injury or Corum’s status for the huge showdown with Ohio State next week.

With backup running back Donovan Edwards out, freshman third-teamer CJ Stokes was pressed into a bigger role in the second half. Then Stokes went out for a while, and Harbaugh had to turn to Isaiah Gash, who came into the game with 16 carries and zero receptions on the season. (He left with three catches, one of them the biggest non-field goal play of the day for Michigan.)

Going into the wind in the third quarter and down several key players, Harbaugh elected to play the situation conservatively on offense. Even with the running back shortage, Michigan ran the ball 12 times and threw it seven in the third, with most of the passes of the short variety. He was biding his time and waiting for the fourth quarter, when the wind would be at the Wolverines’ backs.

“Tough to throw in that environment,” Harbaugh said. “That was a big factor.”

Trailing 17–10, the run-pass ratio changed in the fourth—Michigan threw it 14 times and ran it seven times. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy guided the Wolverines into scoring range three times and Moody kicked three field goals. That was enough. There was no need to panic and try to do more than was needed before it was necessary.

Down 17–13, Harbaugh did opt to go for a fourth-and-four at the Illinois 23, which McCarthy converted with a pass to Roman Wilson. Two plays later, Gash dropped a short pass that could have been a touchdown and then McCarthy overthrew another potential touchdown, resulting in a Moody field goal to make it 17–16.

But on the next possession, Harbaugh wasn’t afraid to call Gash’s number with the game—and season—on the line. Facing a fourth-and-three from the Illinois 45, McCarthy threw in the flat to Gash for eight yards to keep the drive alive.

That was a new play installed this week—for Corum. Harbaugh said he thinks Gash got one rep on the play in practice. But he came through with the catch when needed. Four plays later, Michigan had moved to the Illinois 17. Harbaugh waved in the kicking team and the Lou Groza Award winner from last year lined up for the biggest kick of his life.

“He’s built for it, man,” said Michigan receiver Ronnie Bell. “Didn’t doubt him for a minute."

Moody had punched one through the wind from 46 yards out in the third quarter—a kick that was a couple of yards farther than the max distance Harbaugh believed Moody could make into a breeze that was gusting up to 30 miles per hour. The others were with the wind at his back. Regardless, the fifth-year player from Northville, Mich., wasn’t worried about the elements.

“This isn’t the SEC,” he said, producing the rare kicker bulletin-board material. “We have some tough wind conditions.”

Moody’s winning kick sparked a jubilant celebration and a communal sigh of relief from the Michigan faithful. The weather was brutal enough that the student section thinned out noticeably in the second half, while those who remained huddled together to endure mounting anxiety as this game went down to the wire against a sizable underdog.

This was a game to survive and advance. Now comes one of the biggest showdowns in the history of the epic Ohio State–Michigan rivalry—two undefeated teams colliding with so much on the line.

“Once the clock hit zero, this is what we’ve been looking for all year—11–0 going into that game,” McCarthy said.

Defensive lineman Kris Jenkins said he and his teammates might shorten the customary one-day celebration rule of a victory and flip on some videotape of the Buckeyes Saturday night. Harbaugh, giddy over beating the Illini and achieving the first 11–0 record of his coaching career, said he’s not ready yet to turn the page to Ohio State.

“Six hours from now” it will be time to think about the Buckeyes, he said.

For both Michigan and TCU, this was a day of comebacks and clutch kicks. It kept them both undefeated and with all dreams intact, thanks to a pair of players at a position fraught with error. Punchlines no more, two college kickers came through.