{"id":2659,"date":"2025-09-10T01:49:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/10\/the-implications-of-dominic-zvadas-missed-field-goal\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T01:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:49:08","slug":"the-implications-of-dominic-zvadas-missed-field-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/10\/the-implications-of-dominic-zvadas-missed-field-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"The implications of Dominic Zvada\u2019s missed field goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Saturday, Dominic Zvada did the unthinkable.<\/p>\n<p>Toward the end of the second quarter, the then-No. 15 Michigan football team lined up on then-No. 18 Oklahoma\u2019s 14-yard line facing a fourth-and-2. Freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood had just sailed the ball over the head over graduate wide receiver Donaven McCulley, who stood blocking his defender unaware a throw was intended for him. The miscommunication was an early sign that the Wolverines\u2019 offense might return to the stagnation it exhibited in the game\u2019s first three drives.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If anyone could right the ship, put points on the board and cut Michigan\u2019s deficit to four, it was the Wolverines\u2019 senior kicker, who hadn\u2019t missed a field goal since one was blocked last October.<\/p>\n<p>Down 7-0, Zvada curled the 32-yarder left of the goalposts.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>You\u2019d have to go back all the way to Oct. 21, 2023, when Zvada was on Arkansas State, to find the last time Zvada missed a shorter field goal. The First-Team All-American kicker was virtually flawless last year with Michigan, setting a record by making all seven of his field goal attempts over 50 yards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But in Norman, what\u2019s usually a routine chip shot turned into yet another mistake by the Wolverines. For Michigan coach Sherrone Moore, the best thing to say after a miss like that is nothing at all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t talk to Zvada,\u201d Moore said Monday. \u201cI\u2019m not a kicker. I\u2019ve never been a kicker, and I can imagine the mindset of what happens in that moment, that you can think a whole bunch of different things, and the last thing you need is somebody ripping at you or yelling at you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Moore simply looked at Zvada on the sidelines and nodded. Several drives later, when Zvada was tasked with a 42-yarder, he nailed it down the middle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe always talk about \u2018FIDO: Forget It and Drive On,\u2019 \u201d Moore said. \u201cSo people are going to make mistakes. People are going to make misses, missed assignments, and that was one. Nobody wants to make that kick more than Zvada. So me telling him, \u2018Hey, go make that kick,\u2019 would not be anything helpful. And I have no coaching points to tell him how to make the kick, so I just let him handle it, and he recovered from it.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Zoom out, and a missed field goal in the Wolverines\u2019 second game of the season \u2014 a game that Michigan lost by 11 points \u2014\u00a0might not seem like a big deal. As Moore said, kickers are going to miss, forget it and move on. Zvada certainly did.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But zoom in, and it\u2019s hard not to start thinking about the implications, on and off the field. Zvada makes that kick, and it\u2019s a one-possession game late in the fourth quarter. Zvada makes that kick, and the Lou Groza Award \u2014 the award honoring the country\u2019s best kicker that played a factor in Zvada\u2019s return to the Wolverines after he didn\u2019t win it last year \u2014 remains in the picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Combine that with Michigan\u2019s decision to punt on Oklahoma\u2019s 38-yard line on its second drive of the game after several coaches highlighted the 60-plus field goals Zvada kicks in practice, and Michigan\u2019s kicking game is in a similar place to the team as a whole: loaded with talent, imperfect on execution and making some confusing decisions.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup      \" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000\" id=\"id_162162\" data-segments=\"\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Please consider donating to The Michigan Daily<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday, Dominic Zvada did the unthinkable. Toward the end of the second quarter, the then-No. 15 Michigan football team lined up on then-No. 18 Oklahoma\u2019s 14-yard line facing a fourth-and-2. Freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood had just sailed the ball over the head over graduate wide receiver Donaven McCulley, who stood blocking his defender unaware [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2844,2135,384,500,2846,2845],"class_list":{"0":"post-2659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dominic","9":"tag-field","10":"tag-goal","11":"tag-implications","12":"tag-missed","13":"tag-zvadas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2661,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions\/2661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}