New Michigan football kicker talks expectations at Michigan and more

Over the past few seasons, Jake Moody has spoiled Wolverines fans with incredible play, which he is now doing for San Fransisco 49ers fans during his first few games in the NFL. In Moody’s place is new Michigan football kicker James Turner — a transfer from Louisville — who has been solid for the Maize and Blue through three games. Ahead of this weekend’s Big Ten opener against Rutgers, Turner met with the media, where he gave us the latest on his transition to Michigan, the expectations of following Moody, and more.

New Michigan football kicker has tall task in following Jake Moody

So far this year, new Michigan football kicker James Turner has added 18 points to the Wolverines’ season total and is nearly perfect, aside from a pair of Week 1 misses. Additionally, Turner drilled a huge 50-yarder against East Carolina, which was good to see so early in the year from the new transfer.

At a school like Michigan, where Jake Moody dominated for years, there is added pressure on the kicker position — something that James Turner says can be a good or bad thing.

“Yeah, there’s good and bad, for sure,” he said this week. “There’s definitely a spotlight on the kicker position here. So that’s good and bad. Obviously, if you’re doing good, then it’s good. If you’re doing bad, it’s not so good.

“I think Drake said that pressure is a privilege,” Turner continued. “So I kind of just feed off of that.”

James Turner talks about initial road bumps

In Week 1, James Turner missed two kicks — his only two misses of the year so far. The first was an extra point, and the second was a field goal, and while it’s clear he is unhappy that his kicks didn’t go through, he is glad to have gotten that road bump out of the way.

“ECU was okay, I thought,” the new Michigan football kicker said, explaining his performance thus far. “I mean, obviously, you don’t want to miss PATs — that kind of sucked. But it was good to get that out of the way, in a sense, like that game, because it’s definitely a different environment playing in the big house. And so that was kind of a hurdle to get over, but I’m feeling a lot more confident now and comfortable in there.”

Could pressure create diamonds for Michigan football?

Jake Moody got thrown into the fire quite often with the Wolverines. During Moody’s final game at Michigan Stadium, with Michigan’s perfect season on the line, the veteran superstar kicker drilled a field goal through the uprights, giving the Maize and Blue a 19-17 victory over Illinois and an 11-0 record heading into the Ohio State game.

While James Turner is talented, he says he has yet to kick such a field goal, so there is a chance that we get to see how Turner performs under pressure sometime this fall.

“I haven’t really had that many pressure kicks,” James Turner said. “It’s kind of been — we’re either winning or losing by enough that it didn’t matter that much.”

Heading into this weekend’s game against Rutgers, new Michigan football kicker James Turner is 2/3 on field goals and 12/13 on extra points.

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