Video by Sean Logan | Multimedia Editor
Zane Gonzalez does feel pressure. He’s felt it from coaches. He’s felt it from family. And he’s felt it from himself. Never, though, has Zane Gonzalez let pressure affect him between the sidelines.
The sophomore kicker didn’t have any scholarship offers until late in his recruiting process. Gonzalez thought he’d be going to the University of Nevada, as it was the only offer he had for much of his senior season.
Kickers have to possess elite talent and potential to get offered, especially by big-time programs. One-third of Pac-12 kickers didn't originally receive scholarships from their schools. But because of issues with the Nevada coaching staff that he wouldn’t expand on, Gonzalez decided against it and was going to stay home in Texas, walking on at a school his family could afford.
At the time, coach Todd Graham and ASU were trying to convince Gonzalez to walk on. He knew he couldn’t afford the out-of-state tuition, and he had given up hope of getting a scholarship. But then, Wisconsin came calling with the same recruiter who tried to get him to Nevada.
With an offer from the Badgers on the table, Graham caved and offered Gonzalez a scholarship to ASU, with one caveat: Come in and make an impact as a freshman.
“Long story short, I went from having no offers to (having offers from) Arizona State and Wisconsin,” Gonzalez said. “I loved it here. It’s hot, and I can’t do cold weather.”
He took one official visit, confirming his infatuation with Tempe, and committed.
Gonzalez arrived in fall 2013 as a freshman. He was the first in his family to leave the Deer Park, Texas, area, let alone the state. Naturally, he bonded with his suitemate, teammate and fellow out-of-stater, punter Matt Haack.
The two came in with equal pressures from the coaching staff to perform immediately. Both Haack and Gonzalez rose to the top of the depth chart, despite Gonzalez initially struggling with the pressures of Division I college football.
Playing in front of thousands of people wasn’t new to Gonzalez — he would play in front of “10,000 to 15,000” people in Texas high school games. Rather, what rattled him early on were the high expectations set for him and intensive coaching.
Sophomore place kicker Zane Gonzalez prepares to kick a field goal at a home game against Weber State on Aug. 28, 2014. (Photo by Alexis Macklin)“That part, people watching, I was kind of used to,” Gonzalez said. “(In high school), we didn’t really have a coach that coached me, he just kind of let me go out there and do my own thing. Here, they put more pressure on you and expect more out of you, which really helped me transition for when the season came around.”
Gonzalez’s laid-back but confident personality is what gives him so much success on the field — he was a freshman All-American and nailed 18 consecutive field goals last season — but it’s also what’s allowed him to handle a difficult recruiting process, moving more than 1,000 miles away from home and being relied on in critical moments as a true freshman.
It’s his mental makeup that makes Zane Gonzalez who is he is on and off the field. He credits going away to college for making him a better person. He grew up in a household that was “tight-knit,” one in which he’s the first to ever leave. He’ll never think about his surroundings when attempting a kick, except for one circumstance: when his family is in the crowd.
“I don’t see my family so much anymore, so it’s kind of nerve-wracking,” Gonzalez said.
The two games his family has attended were the Notre Dame game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and the Pac-12 championship game — their only trip to Tempe to see Zane kick.
Once he got on his streak of 18 made field goals, seemingly nothing could stop Gonzalez. But once he began to think on the field — when his family was there — the streak was snapped. He missed a 31-yard attempt in the Pac-12 championship game against Stanford, a kick he knows he can make.
“I was so ticked,” Gonzalez said. “Not just because of the streak. I couldn't care less about the streak; it was just the fact that I missed that close of a field goal.”
His 18-kick streak isn’t even the longest of his kicking career. Near the end, when he began to notice it, Gonzalez was hoping to break a 26-kick streak he had at Deer Park High School.
There’s nothing about Gonzalez that indicates him getting worked up over a missed field goal. His tone when he talks says more beachy Californian than tough Texan. Offensive special teams coach Chip Long described him as having “ice in his veins.” And you’ll never see him upset on the sidelines.
That’s partly because of how Graham teaches his players to present themselves.
“Coach Graham is a big preacher of body language,” Gonzalez said. “And yeah, I keep my cool in body language, but after I missed it … I was like, ‘Gosh, man!’”
Not much fazes Gonzalez, but even when it does — like a missed kick — he’s right back to the tee, ready for the next one. It’s his mentality that sets him apart from other kickers. Rather than dwelling on a miss or overcorrecting because of one, Gonzalez is confident that his mechanics are spot-on, and it was just a one-time miscue in the execution of them.
“With some kickers, one kick will miss left, and they automatically just go right,” Gonzalez said. “But what I realize is you can miss left, but you probably did something wrong that kick. You’ve just got to kick it the same way, and it’s going to go in (the next time).”
All-Americans don’t achieve that status by not knowing what they’re doing, but for Gonzalez, it’s taken to the next level. Not only does he have the short-term memory and perpetually calm demeanor needed to be successful, he also sticks to a routine — and it’s more than kicking.
He’s had the same roommate each of his two years at ASU. As a freshman, he lived in a Barrett, the Honors College dorm room with Haack, receiver Cameron Smith and tight end Grant Martinez. Smith is the only one of the four who doesn’t live in their six-person house just off-campus.
The house embodies Gonzalez as much as anything. The three live with three more teammates, all walk-ons. Typical household activities include watching TV and hanging around the pool, Haack said.
Gonzalez takes the same approach off the field as he does on it. Kicking is such a routine-oriented task, if any part differs, there is that much more of a chance of it missing.
“A lot about being a good kicker is having a routine … and just getting in harmony with the snapper and holder,” Long said. “He’s done a great job. And (holder Mike) Berc(ovici) has done a great job to keep that routine the same for him all the time.”
(Photo by Andrew Ybanez)Coaching both the tight ends and offensive special teams, Long has differing approaches to each position group. He’s much more hands-on with the tight ends, but he compares the kickers to golfers: He doesn’t want to mess with their swings too much.
Long allows them focus on the execution, while he just makes sure the kickers have their fundamentals down. Part of that is due to the way Gonzalez operates. He’s independent and is smart enough to know the mechanics and how to fix them if it’s not going well.
Gonzalez was struggling again early in spring practice, but after sitting out with an injury and tweaking his jab step — the first step he takes to the ball as he’s about to kick it — he was better than ever.
Gonzalez credits a couple of things for allowing him to be so independent and self-improving: the coaching staff’s pressure on him early as a freshman and the maturation process he’s gone through since leaving home for college.
College has changed Gonzalez, much for the better. But the idea of playing college football has also changed since he arrived in fall 2013. He never quite grasped the size of the stage he was playing in front of. For Gonzalez, it was like kicking at practice during each game. The mirage finally shattered at the end of the season, however, when the awards and national recognition began rolling in.
“I feel like I went out there not even caring, not thinking about it,” Gonzalez said. “Then after the season was over and all the awards came out, I figured, ‘Oh it’s kind of a big deal.’ Going into this season, it made me a little nervous thinking about it.”
So, he’s back to where he started. A little nervous. Feeling the pressure. Does Zane Gonzalez really ever crack under pressure, though? Not in the game, he says. Especially not now, since realizing he has a chance to be the best kicker in the nation.
2014 season in photos
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Reach the reporter at ewebeck@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @EvanWebeck
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