ATLANTA — The kickoff coverage team wasn’t used to moving down the field with more than a jogging effort when Gabe Brkic stepped onto the field to kick the ball to the other team.
Then already a highly touted kicker with a powerful leg, the senior at Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin School usually sent the ball past the end zone on kickoffs. In practice and in games, he would do this on a consistent basis, so much so that in 2017 against Padua Franciscan, kicking into winds so strong they'd prevent a touchback, those who were jogging down the field were surprised they actually had to go cover the kickoff.
The ball went right to the 1-yard line and bounced backward, allowing a Padua Franciscan returner to pick it up and return it for a touchdown, catching the Lions by surprise.
“We’re like, ‘Oh crap, here we go,’” said Josh Peroni, Brkic’s former holder and a close friend. “We got to start running down, and he ends up scoring on the play because we were like, ‘What’s happening? He didn’t kick a touchback?’”
Peroni has a plethora of memories that involve Brkic kicking touchbacks into the stands and practicing — and making — 60-yard field goals while still in high school. With Brkic showing off an above-average leg, Brkic not registering a touchback seemed uncanny.
“Our coach would remind us sometimes, ‘Guys, it’s not always going to go out of the end zone and be a touchback,’” Peroni said. “‘You have to actually run down.’”
Two years later, Brkic has become one of Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley’s most reliable offensive weapons, boasting 17 made field goals on 17 attempts, three of those makes being 42 yards or longer. He’s the only kicker in the Football Bowl Subdivision to be perfect in field goals and PATs, being 48-of-48 in that category.
With that kind of kicking talent, it’s hard to think that Brkic wasn’t originally the starter this season. It wasn’t until the suspension of Calum Sutherland in October that Brkic got his first start, in Week 5 against Texas Tech. Even more impressive is that he’s more than ably replaced Austin Seibert, the Big 12’s all-time leading scorer who now kicks for the Cleveland Browns.
“It’s definitely some huge shoes to fill,” said redshirt senior holder Connor McGinnis, “and he’s stepped into them as good as anybody could.”
Redshirt kicker Gabe Brkic before the Bedlam game against Oklahoma State Nov. 30.
‘... he’s guaranteed points.’
Brkic does not look like a kicker.
His 6-foot-2 frame, with the build of an avid lifter, makes people think of other positions — wide receiver or safety. Before high school, his main sport was soccer, among a number of other outdoor hobbies, including skiing and snowboarding with friends in Chardon, Ohio, where he grew up.
Behind his athletic build is a foundation on sports that started in infancy. His father, John, remembers him playing soccer around age 2, and being struck by his coordination.
“Ever since he was little, he would pick up things really easily,” John said. “From throwing a football to kicking a soccer ball to kicking a football to skiing and snowboarding, he picked it up very, very easily.”
For his friends, the earliest tell of Brkic’s athleticism came during school activities. Peroni, who’s known Brkic since elementary school, noticed his leg strength in kickball. When it was Brkic’s turn, all the kids would back up as far as they could.
“It would still go over our heads,” said Peroni, now a cornerback at Hillsdale College in Michigan. “So I knew his leg was unbelievable.”
Brkic was usually the first among his elementary and middle school friends, whether it was running the fastest, being able to touch the basketball net or even do flips — on skis, on a snowboard and just standing.
By junior year, he was able to dunk. In a recreational league among the Catholic schools in Chardon, Luca Dilizio — another friend, who also played high school soccer with him — remembers seeing Brkic shock everyone on a fast break.
“He dunked it pretty hard,” said Dilizio, who now goes to John Carroll University in Ohio, with a laugh. “He got up there.”
Brkic played soccer until his junior year, when he committed to football only. When he first joined the NDCL High School football team his freshman year, coaches at first wanted to use his build and speed at wide receiver. But head coach Andrew Mooney saw the potential in his leg, and he didn’t want anything to happen to their strongest kicker.
“My wide receiver coach would always try to get me to put him in at wideout,” said Mooney, who coached Brkic for all four years in high school, “because he can jump, and he’s fast, and things like that. He’s athletic, and he’s got the hand-eye coordination also.
“I would always turn him down, because he’s guaranteed points.”
Punts that would reach the lights of the stadium and almost constant touchbacks: These are the things coaches and teammates remember from Brkic. His longest field goal in a high school game is 53 yards, although Peroni says Brkic routinely made longer kicks while goofing around in practice.
His kicking only got better as his focus narrowed. His natural leg strength, paired with his work ethic, positioned Brkic to get looks from schools such as Oklahoma, Ohio State and Alabama. He often went to school after hours with teammates, his dad or by himself, and he practiced kicking over and over again.
“He just worked on it,” John said of his son. “He would just go work after school, on weekends by himself ... If it rained, if it was snowing, he would go out there and get used to it. I think just constantly being out and there and training and kicking, it really firmed his confidence as well.”
It made Brkic become automatic, which is why Mooney would send Brkic when his team was past the 50-yard line, leaving opponents wondering how a high schooler could have that much trust from his coaches.
People from his hometown are often confused when Riley doesn’t send Brkic out for 60-yarders, so much so that when the Sooners punted on the 47-yard line in enemy territory — what would be an insane 64-yarder — against then-No. 7 Baylor in the Big 12 Championship with 1:02 to go, Peroni was confused as to why they punted and hadn't let Brkic go to work.
“People thought we were crazy for doing it,” Peroni said. “Anytime he went out there, I 100 percent expected the ball to go in, and it didn’t matter where we were on the field.”
Redshirt sophomore kicker Gabe Brkic kicks the game-sealing field goal during the game against Baylor in Waco, Texas, Nov. 16.
‘He’s got ice in his veins.’
Every time he watches Brkic kick, redshirt senior wide receiver Lee Morris points to his arm, mimicking an injection of ice.
“You see him make those kicks in practice,” Morris said, “and then he comes to games, and he’s ice cold. Nothing affects him. He’s got ice in his veins.”
In the biggest stage he’s played on, he hasn’t missed. In his first season with the Sooners, he’s already beaten the school record for most consecutive field goals (15) and is still going at 17. Without even being the starting kicker for the first three games, Brkic has made nail-biting, critical kicks to extend Oklahoma’s postseason hopes.
“That demeanor that you see on the field, that fearlessness when he’s walking up, that’s not something that he’s acquired. That’s something that he was born with,” Peroni said. “He’s just always had this fearlessness about him that you see on the field. Like when he’s walking up to kick the ball, there’s nothing that fazes him.”
In OU’s 48-41 upset loss at Kansas State, Brkic made all four of his field goal attempts — from 50, 44, 39 and 25 yards.
He even has a strut, something Mooney said would appear in high school as well. Brkic, before making the field goal to put the Sooners ahead 34-31 over then-No. 13 Baylor with under two minutes left, walked out to the middle of the field, while at the same time listening to his coaches. Instead of stopping, he listened while walking backward in the most nonchalant manner, on his way to kick from 31 yards out, completing OU’s largest comeback win in school history and saving its hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff.
The Brkic Strut as he went out for the 31-yd game winner should be taught in grade schools across the state. pic.twitter.com/BfBFwO0Swa
— Eddie Radosevich (@Eddie_Rado) November 17, 2019
“He was just so calm,” redshirt sophomore Jeremiah Hall said. “The guy has ice in his veins. I’ve never seen him get nervous. I’ve never seen him utter anything besides, ‘I got this.’”
“He doesn’t have the swagger of a kicker,” Morris said. “I can’t even describe it. His swagger is top-notch.”
But it’s not just Brkic’s confidence — it’s also Riley’s trust as well, something Brkic said grew during spring camp.
“I’m really confident now. It’s kind of what takes away my nerve,” Brkic said. “After spring ball, (Lincoln) told me all the pressure situation kicks we’ve had at practice, I’m doing good at them. He built more confidence in me.”
Now having 10 starts at Oklahoma, he’s taken advantage of every single opportunity given to him, and he is already considered an NFL prospect as a redshirt freshman.
On Saturday, Dec. 28, Brkic will have more opportunities to continue his field goal streak of 17, and he without a doubt will be the starter for the Sooners next season. As the latter half of the season got shaky, with games going down to the wire, Riley has had no problem sending out Brkic, who’s been a rock for the Sooners’ kicking game. With every game he plays, he gains confidence that is nothing new to those who know him best.
“I feel that he doesn’t really feel any pressure on the field when he’s kicking,” Dilizio said. “I think it sort of shows. He hasn’t missed. He just goes out and he does it.”
“He’s just confident in everything that he does.”
