Iowa football: Keith Duncan taking unconventional path to kicking job

Redshirt junior Keith Duncan’s journey with the Iowa football team has been nothing short of unusual. Let’s take a look at what has transpired.

Until Saturday’s contest against Miami of Ohio, Keith Duncan hadn’t kicked (or made) a field goal for the Iowa football team since Barack Obama was president.

As a freshman in 2016, Duncan beat out Miguel Recinos to win the kicking job and put together a pretty nice season. The North Carolina native went 38 or 39 on extra points and 8 of 11 on field goals good for 97.4% and 81.8%.

1 of those 8 field goal makes was none other than the 33-yard game-winning field goal to knock off the #3 ranked Michigan Wolverines at Kinnick.

Can you imagine being a freshman and hitting one of the biggest field goals in program history, successfully converting most of your kicking attempts, and then being relegated to the bench for two years?

Welcome to Keith Duncan’s life.

After being the starter in all of 2016, Miguel Recinos claimed the job and kept it for the following two years. Meanwhile, Duncan redshirted in 2017 and then sat on the sideline last season burning another season of eligibility. That would be quite a tough pill to swallow.

But he did it, and two years later, here he is, kicking field goals and extra points for the Iowa football team once again.

Against Miami of Ohio, Caleb Shudak handled kickoff duties while Ducan took care of placekicking, and he did pretty well.

Duncan his all 5 of his extra-point attempts as well as his lone field goal attempt, a 21-yard field goal with just under two minutes remaining in the first quarter.

Now as a savvy junior, Keith Duncan looks to build off this season-opener performance and keep a hold of the placekicking job not just for this season, but the next as well.