Special teams is often an overlooked unit — that is, until you make a critical error. With that kind of pressure bearing on specialists on the football field, it can be mentally taxing and exhausting to play kicker, punter or long snapper for high-level programs like Indiana. We saw it in 2024, as Indiana made […]
Special teams is often an overlooked unit — that is, until you make a critical error.
With that kind of pressure bearing on specialists on the football field, it can be mentally taxing and exhausting to play kicker, punter or long snapper for high-level programs like Indiana.
We saw it in 2024, as Indiana made critical errors on special teams against Ohio State, leading to the Hoosiers’ first and only loss of the regular season. With immense pressure put on you before an important special teams snap, some crumble, but Indiana’s specialists all have ways they navigate the mental game that executing a kick or punt contains.
All four of Indiana’s specialists — Nico Radicic, Mitch McCarthy, Brendan Franke and Mark Langston — spoke with the media following practice on Friday, with each of them describing how they go about the mental aspect of their positions.
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“I feel like if you overcomplicate it, a lot of things can go wrong,” Radicic said. “So, I just jog out there. I probably get one swing in just in the air and just wait for Mitch to say the cadence, and I just kick the ball and walk my butt back to the sideline.”
This routine worked for Radicic a season ago, as he was 10-for-11 on field goals and an astounding 69-for-69 on extra points in 2024. This broke the record for most extra points made by an Indiana kicker, and it took him only nine games to do so.
Radicic takes a simple approach. He’s out there to do his job and do it well. He doesn’t want to overthink, which is exactly the approach he feels is best. Radicic wants to have fun with it, and enjoying being out there helps ease the nerves of kicking with the pressure of Big Ten football.
“I just make it a fun thing. I don’t make it anything harder than it already is,” Radicic told reporters. “I’m just there if the team needs me to knock down three points, and if I make it anything harder than that, I’m going to keep putting stuff in my head that I don’t need. I just make it very simple for myself and just keep the ball between the posts.”
Fellow kicker Brendan Franke also takes the approach of making it enjoyable and allowing that to eliminate the pressure of putting boot to ball. While Radicic does so with field goals and extra points, the premise applies to kickoffs as well, which is Franke’s specialty.
“At the end of the day, this is a game and you’re supposed to have fun. So I take it as seriously as I need to to make sure I’m dialed in,” Franke explained. “And our coach always tells us to focus. Not be concentrated, but be focused and not overthink. And that’s the biggest thing because the more you think about it, the more it’s going to go. So you just let your leg do the work and it’ll all go the way it’s supposed to.”
It can be easy to overthink, which leads to a focus on your thoughts and not what you’re supposed to be doing out on the field. This can lead to both mental and physical errors, which are the last thing you can afford during a special teams play.
The goal for special teams is clear: execute. You can’t execute if your mind is racing with thoughts that don’t have to do with the task at hand, which is why a strong mental approach is critical. With Radicic and Franke, their mental game has produced results on the field, with Franke totaling just 10 of his 78 kickoffs in 2024 returned and exactly zero kicks landing out of bounds.
Mental fortitude has also produced results for long snapper Mark Langston, as he was rock solid for the Hoosiers last season and didn’t make a key error all year long. His approach is as simple as the ones already mentioned, with the snapper only focused on his craft and nothing else.
“A lot of people train till they get one right. I train until I can’t get one wrong. So just having a purpose every time you go out there and snapping the ball, especially when you go through summer, that’s when you chip away at your sculpture you’re building every year. And then when you come to the game to practice, that’s when you don’t think and you blink and you just rely on your muscle memory,” Langston said.
The dedication to getting better doesn’t just help with the physical aspects of playing football, but maximizing your confidence physically also translates into the mental facets of executing on the field. Langston understands that, as he’s focused on getting better each day, allowing for impressive results in front of high-pressure crowds.
Punter Mitch McCarthy explained just how much pressure there can be when attempting to execute a special teams play in a college football game. He explained how different it can be compared to practice, but that you have to treat it just like any other situation in order to get it done.
“I think punting especially, there’s a lot of pressure on you. Cameras are on you, people looking at you, everyone’s watching. It’s one thing to punt in practice with a little bit of pressure,” McCarthy said. “It’s another thing to take it into a game and punt with 50,000 people screaming at you. I can kick big balls in practice, that’s fine. I can kick big balls on my own. Being able to hit a big ball in a game under pressure is a totally different kettle of fish.”
Despite the pressure of special teams, McCarthy and the rest of Indiana’s specialists are focused only on the task at hand. They’re not concerned about what’s going on around them, but they understand the magnitude of the situations they’re in.
Instead of getting rattled by fans in the stands and those watching on television, they’re committed to delivering for their team and Hoosier Nation. They don’t overthink; they simply execute.
The late Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight once said, “Mental is to physical as 4 is to 1,” and Indiana’s specialists seem to have their routine and mentality all figured out.
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Category: General Sports
