Texas kicker Bert Auburn bursting with confidence and improving as the season goes along
The life of a college football kicker can be a stressful one but it doesn’t have to be. Just ask Texas junior Bert Auburn, who goes about his work, his studies and his life with a positive outlook buoyed by knowing he has the support of the Longhorns coaching staff and his teammates.
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“I’ve never seen Bert without a smile on his face,” Texas safety Michael Taaffe said. “He just encourages everybody, understands his role, and tries to communicate best to guys with positive vibes only.”
It certainly helps that Auburn is darn good at what he does, and he’s getting even better. After missing five of his first 14 kicks in 2023, Auburn has converted 11 straight field goals, including 49-yarders in the past two games and a 47-yarder against Oklahoma.
Auburn also has hit on all 38 of his PAT kicks this season.
“I’m just thinking in my head that it’s just like practicing off the sticks as if Ryan Sanborn is not even holding the ball, it’s just the sticks holding the ball and nobody’s coming at me,” Auburn said about his focus. “It just came down to me, Lance (St. Louis) and Ryan. You get more reps on our own and (we’re) dialing into to our routine every week and just focusing on that.
“When you keep making kicks, the goalposts look a little wider than normal.”
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian understands that Auburn can be a weapon, or even a great fallback position in fourth down-and-long situations where the Longhorns reach the opponent’s 35 yard line.
“Inside 50 yards, we feel very comfortable with Bert, all things considering with wind and whatnot,” Sarkisian said Monday. “He gives me that confidence. It’s been two straight years now where that guy has made really big kicks for us at critical moments in the fourth quarters of games that have given us opportunities.”
Before this season, Auburn played in 14 games and was an honorable mention All-Big 12 selection in 2022 when he produced the fourth-most accurate season for a kicker in Texas history by making 21 of 26 field goals (80.8 percent). He was named to the Academic All-Big 12 First Team in last year and is a four-time member of the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll (fall 2021, spring 2022, fall 2022, spring 2023).
To help him with his focus, Auburn said he picks a spot behind the end zone in pregame as a target and looks for that when lining up for placekicks in a game.
“What I do pregame is pick something out behind the uprights, and that’s where I want to swing through and that’s where I want my target line to be,” he explained. “It’s kind of what I use pregame for, to find that spot, see what the wind is doing. It depends where you’re at on the field. If you’re on the left hash or right hash, it switches up a little bit.”
Auburn says his confidence is helped by the support he gets from the team. “On the sideline like when I’m going to get water and stuff you know everybody’s giving me high fives and stuff like that,” Auburn said.
“I learned a ton from (former Texas kicker) Cameron Dicker my freshman year just seeing how laid back he was and everything. It wasn’t anything technique wise or something like that it was just how his mindset and how laid back he was with it.”
