As the Alabama Crimson Tide captured yet another national championship with a thrilling victory over Georgia in the CFB title game, Arizona State kicker Brandon Ruiz’s phone started to blow up.

"I was trending on Twitter right below Nick Saban,” he recalled.

But Saban was involved in the game; Ruiz, like everyone else, was just watching. Regardless, many, probably including Saban, were thinking about Ruiz after Alabama senior kicker Andy Pappanastos’ potential game-winning 36-yard field goal hooked left as time expired to send the game into overtime.

Ruiz committed to Alabama in June of 2016 as the third-ranked kicker in the country. But seven months later, choosing to stay close to his family in Gilbert, he decommitted and signed with ASU. It could have been him trotting on to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium grass with a chance to etch his name into Alabama lore and deliver a national title. Instead, it was Pappanastos.

Ruiz admitted the feeling was weird, but even if he committed to Alabama and won the kicking competition, there’s no guarantee he would have been in that spot.

“I'm like a believer where if I was there, the whole season would be different for them. I believe in like a butterfly effect kind of thing,” he said. “I just feel like the whole season would be different, just everything.”

If Alabama’s season followed the same script with Ruiz at kicker, though, he’s confident the game wouldn’t have gone into overtime.

“He (Pappanastos) did miss two field goals in that game,” Ruiz said. “I would've made the first one, so it wouldn't have been that situation."

Ruiz lacks no confidence. With a year under his belt, the Williams Field High School alum says he’s “way more confident” in himself. “It feels like I'm in high school again, it's just fluid."

By just observing practice, some would be surprised to hear that from Ruiz. The sophomore kicker has been inconsistent during practices. On August 9, he went 2-for-4 during 11-on-11 play, evoking a classic quote from Herm Edwards after his third kick just barely slipped inside the left upright.

“He’s going to make me lose all the hair I got,” Edwards said at the time.

Five nights prior, during ASU’s second fall practice, Ruiz went 2-for-5 (all three misses were from beyond 40 yards). That night, he talked with special teams coordinator Shawn Slocum throughout practice and started altering things with each rep. A recipe that rarely breeds success.

"That day was like the second day of field goals, I just wasn't feeling fluid that day. I wasn't feeling very confident. It was just one of those days. And then I bounced back, and ever since then, honestly it's been pretty perfect.”

Following that night, Ruiz said he’s spent time working on his stance, making it more balanced. But even then, an outsider wouldn’t know the difference. As mentioned before, Ruiz went 2-for-4 less than a week later; on August 16, he went 4-for-6 on kicks ranging from 32 yards to over 50.

Some would say that he’s adjusting to a new long snapper following the departure of senior Mitchell Fraboni. He said it’s “really easy on me.”

That’s a common issue concerning special teams, few who aren’t ingrained in it every day can tell what causes problems if they can even tell there are any. At the first signs of failure with kickers, most automatically assume it’s a mental thing. Slocum, the former special teams coordinator of the Green Bay Packers, is one of the few engrained in it, and he said he’s seen no problems with Ruiz’s mentality.

After all, he seemed confident in saying there was really was no issue at all.

“It’s all technique,” Slocum said of Ruiz’s misses. “I think he’s doing well. It’s a progression from the start to now; we’ve done some things technique-wise to help and boy, he looked really good today.”

Slocum isn’t exaggerating, Ruiz went a perfect 13-for-13 Thursday, the sophomore said. On Wednesday, he nailed a 64-yarder that looked like it would have been good from over 70. Even his head coach complimented Ruiz’s progression through this fall.

But Edwards is like the rest of us, unfamiliar with the intricacies of kicking technique. He seemed content in leaving the coaching of Ruiz to Slocum.

“I just kind of leave them alone. I just kind of pat him and say, ‘Hey you’re doing good,’” Edwards said. “I’ve been around some good ones, and the good ones they just kick it. They just kick the ball. They don’t try and aim it, and I think when he aims it, he’ll push it a little right.”

This summer, Ruiz was able to work with one of those “good ones” Edwards mentioned. Oakland Raiders’ kicker Mike Nugent came to Tempe this spring to visit the former New York Jets’ head coach who drafted him in the second round of the 2005 NFL Draft.

Ruiz and Nugent kept in contact after their initial meeting, getting together on Tuesdays and Thursdays to kick in ASU’s Verde Dickey Dome.

“We went twice a week and just played pig and stuff and competed. I actually beat him one time, which was my big summer goal, I beat him one time in a game of pig. So that really helped, (being able to) bounce a bunch of ideas off him, it just really worked well."

Ruiz was able to see, first-hand, what an NFL kicker is capable of. A summer of comparisons may be tough to spot on the field this year, but he’s trying to mimic Nugent in one pretty obvious way.

When asked if the Lou Groza Award, which Nugent won back in 2004 while at Ohio State, was a goal, the sophomore didn’t hesitate.

"This year, how I've been performing so far in practice these past few days,” Ruiz said, “it's definitely a goal."

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