PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – You’ve heard of playing not to lose, for Pitt kicker Ben Sauls he was kicking not to miss. As 2022 season progressed, he started to figure it out and by the Sun Bowl he was ready to be the hero.
“At some point early last season, I was scared to miss,” Sauls said. “When you think about it ‘why are you scared to miss’? If you really grind that process and focus on the process, the outcome is obsolete. It’s going to be most likely where you want to go.”
Sounds like he just came out of a Pitt philosophy class. You know kickers are usually wired a little bit different. But let’s take what he’s saying and break it down. You should also know the Panthers assistant who coached Aaron Donald, Jaylen Twyman and Calijah Kancey, associate head coach Charlie Partridge, helped him with this.
“I changed my mindset to not be so outcome oriented,” Sauls explained. “If I focus on my process. If I step where I want to step and plant where I want to plant and I follow through and hit the ball where I want to hit it, nine times out of 10 it’s going to go exactly where I want to go. It’s about being process oriented.”
Especially kicking outside where the conditions can me as much a cause of a miss as the execution, that teaching has merit. The junior said the key is to believe in yourself, even though he admits it sounds cliché. He said it took him three years to build that mindset. Sauls still gets a little nervous, the heart still revs up for kicks. But he walks himself through the process and if he does that he assures everyone of a ‘really, really good outcome’.
That showed in the Sun Bowl, kicking a game-winning 47-yard field goal into a crazy wind, which would play with most kicker’s minds. He trusted the process and made the other four field goal attempts and two extra points in a Panthers win.
“You could call that a perfect game,” Sauls said. “It was really unbelievable from the line, to the snap, to the hold. It was nothing different. I wasn’t anything of a different person, but that mindset that carried all season long that got built for through misses and makes. It was there and was sharp and ready to go and it was time.”
Now it’s about carrying that over into this season, making 20-24 field goals and every extra point after winning a battle last camp with Sam Scarton. He won the John Folmer Sun Bowl Special Teams MVP and ran the field as one of the heroes. At a booster event last month, he got one of the loudest ovations.
Now it’s about proving that’s not all he has, a game-winning kick in a bowl game.
“I don’t like to miss,” Sauls said. “Every day our goal is to be perfect. The other day at practice I went six for eight, that’s not my standard any more. Even if I go six for six and I’m not feeling the ball is where I want it to go, granted it went in six times out of six. I can feel that perfection within how my foot hits the ball. How I am carrying the body through the ball. If it’s going where I want it to go. The room for error is getting smaller and that’s what’s improving my game.”
Now he’s the guy. He’s good with that, he wants to be the guy, the money guy. The player that when he steps on the field, everyone knows he will get the job done. The Ohio native said he will not make every kick, but can promise if he focused on the process, it will go where he wants it.
Attention will come, preseason honors, expectations. He said he get complacent or big-headed. He knows how to make those post-season awards happen and then maybe, someday, a job as a professional football player.
“You make your kicks and accolades follow,” Sauls said. “My goal is to go one-for-one. If you can do that over-and-over again. We can just strive for that perfection and chase the one-for-one, over-and-over again.”
Sauls says he trusts the process so Pitt fans can continue to trust him.