‘Special Kicker’ Bolsters Special Teams

“The kick is up, and it’s good.”

They’re words that have, over the course of a century of football, become an unmistakable part of the sport’s vernacular. But in recent seasons, the phrase all but disappeared from Cambridge, prompting confusion on those few occasions it was muttered, as if spoken in a foreign tongue.

“I was only aware of what was going on last year,” freshman placekicker Matt Schindel said. “I could tell by the weird scores that something was messed up.”

As Schindel inferred, Harvard’s field goal unit was downright awful in 2003, converting on just four of its 12 tries—up from the two of seven one year earlier—while botching seven extra points.

But even those statistics don’t tell the whole truth. Crimson coach Tim Murphy would, rather than send out his special teams for the gridiron equivalent of Russian roulette, take his chances with his offense on fourth down or attempting a two-point conversion.

Not this year.

Schindel has not only improved upon the lackluster performances of his immediate predecessors, but also propelled himself into the Harvard record books, tying Charlie Brickley ’15 for the program’s single-season field goal mark with 13. The freshman has missed just four three-point tries en route to matching the 92-year-old record, while converting 29 of 32 extra points.

“If you just look at our red zone capability, in five of the last six games, we’ve been 100 percent in the red zone and that’s a reflection of the whole offense and him,” Murphy said. “[Schindel] gives you a little more confidence and the flexibility to do other things.”

Selling a fake field goal among them.

With one successful try already under his belt against Penn last weekend, Schindel lined up for the record breaker, which would have come from 35 yards out.

The Quakers crashed the line of scrimmage, hoping to bat the ball down. Of course, Schindel never attempted his kick, nor had he ever intended to.

Holder Rob Balkema leapt from his crouched position and fired a touchdown strike to linebacker Bobby Everett, crushing Penn’s title hopes.

“You think anyone was thinking about a fake field goal when Matt Schindel was lining up out there?” Murphy asked. “This guy’s deadly. You knew they were going to go for the all-out block.”

Given the Crimson’s history, that certainly wouldn’t have been the case at season’s start. Murphy professed that he’d discovered “a special kicker,” but not even he could have expected the consistency Schindel has provided.

More than anything, Murphy appeared to be setting his kicker up for a fall similar to those witnessed in previous years.

“I almost feel guilty for saying that then,” Murphy said. “Because what right did I have to say that based upon our history?”

Schindel wasted little time vindicating his new coach, however, solidifying his stranglehold on the starting role in Harvard’s season opening win against Holy Cross, contested amid the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.

“One of the questions you always have about freshman guys from places like Phoenix or Los Angeles or Florida is, ‘Yeah, okay, they do great when its 75 degrees in pre-season, but what happens when it gets really cold?’” Murphy said. “‘What happens when it gets windy? What happens when it gets mushy and wet?’”

Well, if you’re Matt Schindel, you send all five of your kicks—three extra points and field goals from 31 and 37 yards, respectively—soaring through the uprights.

“I was kind of put in a spot I’d never been in my first college game,” Schindel said. The conditions were windy, really cold, driving rain...I got the confidence rolling. I knew it wasn’t going to be different from anything I’d experienced in high school.”

Well, maybe the swirling winds of Harvard Stadium’s open end were just a little bit different than the warm gusts of air flowing through Schindel’s hometown, Coral Springs, Fla.

Though playing conditions had minimal impact on his performance back home—Schindel said that, inside the 40, wind has no effect on his kicks whatsoever—Cambridge took a little getting used to.

“It’s a whole different ball game inside the Stadium,” Schindel said. “The field goal I hit to end the first half against Northeastern was from 38 yards from the right hash. I had my aim point right on the right upright and it just snuck inside the left post.”

Not that his teammates will minded the lack of cushion very much after enduring several seasons where similar kicks skipped low and wide.

But according to Schindel, whether he’d even get that chance this season was up in the air as recently as training camp. Though he’d recovered from a broken plant leg as a high school sophomore and built up his strength, the first week of pre-season drills saw him locked in a battle with one of his classmates for first-string time.

But the same mantra that has served him so well throughout the season carried Schindel through the pre-season as well.

“If you don’t miss,” he said, “no one can beat you.”

Less than a week later, that challenger quit, handing the job to Schindel, who has never looked back.

“To think that he’s on the brink of breaking school records as a freshman—the bottom line is, ‘Who’s probably our most slam dunk first-team All-Ivy guy?’” Murphy asked. “It might be our kicker.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.