Austin Starr relishes his special role for the Hoosiers

The clock is winding down at the end of the game, and the other team is barely ahead. All may seem lost, but junior kicker Austin Starr couldn’t think of a better time to display what he does best and prove he has ice water running through his veins.\n“I want to be in the pressure situations. I want the game to be riding on my leg,” Starr said. “It’s the whole scenario. It’s the opportunity to make the big kick.”\nFor the second straight year, Starr has provided the Hoosiers with an extra lift when they needed it most. With only one missed field goal all year, he is having a coming-out party.\nBeing a kicker is not the most glamorous of jobs, but Starr said he knows the value of a good kicker. \n“We win games,” Starr said, “And when they can’t execute in the red zone, at least we get some points.”\nSo far, Starr has done his best to prove kickers are meaningful to a football team. His 12 field goals this season lead the Big Ten, and he’s third in scoring, averaging 10.3 points per game. The biology major who intends to go to medical school after finishing his undergraduate degree ranks fourth and 13th in those categories nationally, respectively.\n“He feels that every time he takes the field, he’s going to make his kick,” said assistant head coach Gerald Brown. “Confidence just soars in him and he just can’t wait to get out there.” \nLast Saturday against Minnesota, Starr tied a school record with four field goals in a game, and at Western Michigan, he hit a career-long 48-yarder. But it was a game-winning 33-yard field goal at Illinois last year that changed his career.\n“Leading up to that kick, I was in a zone where I was only focused on the task at hand,” Starr said. “It was that focus that, unknowingly, allowed me to mature.”\nThe change in Starr’s ability to bounce back from a missed kick over the last few years has been like night and day, said senior long snapper Tim Bugg.\n“He’s made leaps and bounds, not only physically but mentally,” Bugg said. “Some people might have said that he was a bit of a head case early on in his career. Not anymore though, he’s really got a lot mentally tougher.”\nAll of this coming from a former soccer player who took a stab at playing football.\nPrior to his sophomore year of high school, Starr had no real desire to kick a football. But at his high school, it was tradition for the football coach to get a senior soccer player to come out for football and try kicking.\nFor no reason in particular, Starr said he decided to give it a shot. With one senior injured and the other having quit, Starr found himself as the lone kicker on the team.\nBut because his coach wasn’t allowing him to kick from more than 40 yards away, Starr wasn’t recruited to play for many Football Bowl Subdivision schools. It didn’t matter to him though – he wanted to go to IU to major in biology.\nJust to see if he could, Starr tried out for the Hoosiers and barely made the roster. \nHowever, he knew his mechanics needed some work – mainly because he didn’t have any. Starr attended several kicking camps and then decided to purchase “the best investment I’ve made.” \nHe went online and bought field goal posts, stuck them into the ground, and used a bungee cord to hold them together. \nHalf the size of a normal goal post, Starr practiced no less than three days a week for two hours a day during the summer. The smaller posts forced him to be a more accurate and consistent kicker.\n“He’s one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever seen,” Bugg said. “We used to think he was crazy, with how many balls he would kick during practice. But it seems to be working for him.”