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Wisconsin Badgers opening up kicker competition after another missed field goal vs Indiana

Luke Fickell is ready to open the Wisconsin Badgers' kicker battle back up after another miss from senior Nathanial Vakos against Indiana.
Lorin Cox|
Aug 30, 2024; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers kicker Nathanial Vakos (90) attempts to kick a field goal during the game against the Western Michigan Broncos at Camp Randall Stadium.
Aug 30, 2024; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers kicker Nathanial Vakos (90) attempts to kick a field goal during the game against the Western Michigan Broncos at Camp Randall Stadium. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

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Wisconsin Badgers

The Wisconsin Badgers had a kicker competition this summer to determine who would get the nod for the regular season.

Luke Fickell is ready to open that battle back up after another miss from senior Nathanial Vakos against the Indiana Hoosiers.

His 45-yard attempt in the first quarter went wide left, preventing the Badgers from taking an early leader over the No. 2 team in the country.

It was his fourth missed field goal this season on only nine attempts.

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During Fickell's Monday press conference, he revealed that backup kicker Gavin Lahm will be back in the mix for the final two games of the season.

“That’s something that, this week, could very well be an option,” Fickell said. “Last week, going into it, just knowing that, by nature, Gavin has a little bit more pop in his leg.... and if we were put in a situation where we needed something outside of Vakos’s reach, that he would be an option.

The plan was for Lahm to redshirt this season and return as the kicker for 2026 as Vakos exhausts all of his eligibility.

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But the starter is now five-of-nine on the season after going just 12-of-19 the year before.

Lahm can kick for the final two games and still maintain that redshirt eligibility, making it as good of a time as ever to reopen the competition.

“I would have told you earlier in the year that in those last four games, Gavin would be the kickoff guy," Fickell said. "But Vakos has done a great job with kickoffs this year. So I think it’ll be one of those things this week that we’ll be able to create a little bit more competition and see what we need to do as we go into Saturday.”

Lahm has not attempted a field goal in a regular season game across his three-plus years for the Badgers.

He was exclusively the kickoff specialist from 2022-2024, so his accuracy is more of an unknown compared to Vakos.

It's not encouraging that Lahm was unable to win the offseason competition, with Vakos presenting as the better option entering the season.

A change at kicker may not solve the problem for Wisconsin, but at least it could present the possibility for more consistency over the final two Saturdays.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.

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