Former Arizona State quarterback Mike Bercovici knew what could be in store for Zane Gonzalez before anyone else in college football had even heard of the young kicker.

Bercovici, Gonzalez’s holder for two years, remembers holding footballs before practice while the 18-year-old kicked field goals. Gonzalez made almost every kick, but when he missed, it wasn’t by much. In fact, Bercovici said the misses almost always seemed to hit the upright. Bercovici would look at Gonzalez and find it comical that he missed in the same way.

“That moment for me was an aha moment, like, ‘This kid is unreal,’” Bercovici said in a February phone interview. “He weighed about 150 pounds when he came in and he’s put on weight since then and worked hard, but I just knew there was something about him that was special.”

About four years later, Zane Gonzalez is a household name in the college football community because of his record-setting career at ASU. He made an FBS-record 96 career field goals as a four-year starter under head coach Todd Graham. He also finished his illustrious career with 494 total points, the most for a kicker in FBS history.

In December, he received the Lou Groza Award that is given the nation’s best kicker and was voted the third unanimous All-American in ASU program history soon after.

“I wasn’t really too nervous, but as the awards kept going and going on live TV, I got a little nervous,” Gonzalez said in a February interview at ASU. “But once my name was announced (for the Lou Groza Award), it was a dream come true. My dad teared up a little bit. It was an amazing time, amazing thing to be able to experience with my family.”

Gonzalez finished his college career with six FBS records, more than any other kicker in history. And while he is grateful for the records he set and the success he had, it’s about more than that. It’s about the doors that his accomplishments opened.

The Deer Park, Texas, native hopes to hear his name called in this weekend’s NFL Draft, which begins Thursday and finishes Saturday. There is often a debate on how high kickers should be drafted, if at all. According to NFL.com, Gonzalez is projected to be selected in the third or fourth rounds.

However, almost all draft experts seem to agree on one thing: Gonzalez is the top kicker in this year’s draft. It is almost certain he will be selected and when he is, it will be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and a testament to his mental fortitude throughout everything that he’s had to overcome to get to this point.

“I had a lot of family issues growing up,” Gonzalez said. “My mom was out of my life for about 10 years and we really struggled living in a one-bedroom apartment with my grandma. Just doing everything from then to my dad working all the jobs. Now, it’s just crazy how far determination and motivation can take you.”

That determination and motivation have developed throughout the years. They have become stronger with each hardship. Even after four years of college, Gonzalez said the toughest adversity he has ever faced in football came during his recruiting process.

It first looked as if Gonzalez was going to end up playing soccer at a junior college in Texas. His best football offer on the 2013 National Signing Day was from Nevada, a school he knew he didn’t want to attend. But about two months after, his daily prayers were answered as Wisconsin and ASU offered him. Gonzalez committed to ASU at the end of March, the culmination of a process he admitted beat him up mentally and physically.

“I feel like I was underrated a lot coming out (of high school),” he said. “There were very few people who knew what I could do … Now, everybody is coming around.”

Shortly after ASU offered him, Gonzalez went to the back of Deer Park High School and started kicking field goals. He remembers everybody wondering why he was out there until the late hours of the night. But for him, the answer was simple: He was putting in the work that would eventually help him prove he belonged at the Division I level.

“I remember just doing that by myself with like three balls, so you have to shag every three kicks,” Gonzalez said. “It was a real struggle.”

In the months leading up to this weekend’s NFL Draft, Gonzalez would wake up sometime between 9-10 a.m. each day, complete assignments for his online class and run whatever errands he needed to. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he would work out from about 3-5:30 p.m. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he kicked from about 12:30-2 p.m. He also trained with his kicking coach, Jamie Kohl, and kicked with former ASU punter Matt Haack and rising redshirt junior kicker John O’Brien.

Gonzalez’s ability to put the ball through the uprights is well known, but his ability to put it out of the end zone only adds to his résumé. Following his sophomore year, Gonzalez said he knew ASU needed a new kickoff specialist because Alex Garoutte was graduating.

Gonzalez took on the challenge of improving his kickoffs, and it showed. As a junior in 2015, 75 percent of his kickoffs were touchbacks. He then upped that number to 75.9 during his senior year.

“Coming in here, he couldn’t kick the ball past the 10-yard line,” said ASU head coach Todd Graham back in October. “Now, he kicks every one of them past the end zone.”

The numbers suggest Gonzalez is as complete of a college kicker as the NCAA has ever seen, but he knows the NFL is a different animal. And not just because the players are much larger.

“It is a job,” Gonzalez said. “You’re getting paid for it at that level, so now there’s that extra motivation. You got to get it done or you’re not going to be around for a long time.”

Gonzalez said everyone in the NFL is elite, even the free agents. More specifically, he singled out Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker as someone he tries to learn from. He said he attempts to mimic Tucker’s stance and how he approaches the ball when running up to kick it.

During his senior year, Gonzalez was deadly accurate. He made 13 of 15 field goals from 40 yards or further. Additionally, he went 7-for-9 on kicks of at least 50 yards, including setting a school record with a 59-yard field goal.

Tucker, on the other hand, made 38 of his 39 field goal attempts this past season. Since entering the NFL in 2012, he has never missed more than seven kicks in a year. Gonzalez said Tucker’s dominance is just one of the reasons he still has a long way to go.

“There’s people like him going out there and kicking in Baltimore and almost going damn near perfect the entire season, it’s pretty insane,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez also has a certain level-headedness any successful kicker needs. It is a unique ability to focus on one kick at a time, regardless of the past. During his junior year, Gonzalez missed three field goals in the first half during a triple-overtime home loss to Oregon. His missed kicks certainly could have won ASU the game.

“You kind of just want to get back out there because you’re always going to have that next kick, so you might as well get it over with,” he said.

That attitude immediately paid off as he hit two field goals in the second half and only missed one kick in the final five games of the season, making 14 of 15. As a senior, Gonzalez made a school-record 17 consecutive field goals, which was also the longest active streak in college football last season.

Gonzalez said soccer taught him to stay on an even keel. His experience on the soccer pitch has paid dividends in his promising kicking career because it taught him how to deal with a balance that is perhaps foreign to football. He learned how to be cool, calm and collected at all times.

“Soccer is one of those games where you have to be composed and can’t be sprinting all the time,” he said. “You got to make sure you jog and sprint at the right times.”

His many field goals impacted the program in the win column, but he also helped make a difference after he’d made the final kick of his career. Brandon Ruiz, a kicker from Williams Field High School in Gilbert, is regarded by many recruiting sites as the nation’s top kicking prospect. Ruiz was committed to Alabama before flipping to ASU this January.

Gonzalez said ASU special teams coach Shawn Slocum asked him to help sway Ruiz, so he did. Gonzalez said he feels like he was part of the reason Ruiz flipped. For a kicker, a school that boasts two Lou Groza winners in its history like ASU does is an enticing option.

The school’s most recent Groza winner talked to Ruiz a few times and sold him on staying home instead of playing for an Alabama program that has won 16 national championships and is a perennial contender each year.

“If you come here, you’re right by your family, you don’t have to go cross-country,” Gonzalez said he told Ruiz. “Over there (in Alabama), everybody is going to know exactly what you’re doing each and every time. Over here, it’s going to be a bit more laid back. And also, you also can’t pick a better place to kick and better fans.”

Gonzalez’s legacy seems to have touched all involved. Those who coached him and played with him have witnessed greatness. The fans who saw him make field goals every week now have lifelong memories of seeing the man that is statistically the best kicker in college football history. And those who have met or spoken to him seem to come away astonished at his humility amidst unrivaled success.

“I’m 51, so I’m probably not going to have an opportunity to coach a young man that does that,” said Graham after Gonzalez broke the FBS career field goals record.

Gonzalez said he hasn’t yet reached his ultimate goal of becoming a mainstay in the NFL, so he can’t relax just yet. However, he is one step closer to a lifelong dream. A high school senior who thought he was going to end up playing soccer at a junior college in Texas is now on the verge of playing football at the highest level.

Right after he won the Groza award, Gonzalez and his older brother, Zach, went to a bar and grill restaurant and talked about how Zane’s story unfolded. If his story ended on that night, it would be a terrific one. But with an attitude that separates his right leg from other talented ones, Legatron could soar to even bigger and better heights.

“I was a kid that never gave up,” Gonzalez said. “I always saw it and always knew that I could do great things.”