CLEMSON – There’s only one job for a placekicker in football: put it between the uprights. It’s something that may seem trivial from a physical standpoint, but there’s so much more that goes into it, especially mentally.

For Clemson kicker Jonathan Weitz, he wasn’t expecting to be back in a Tigers uniform, but that’s how everything fell into place and he’s still the starter since making his return against Florida State. Coming in, head coach Dabo Swinney had talked about using him for shorter kicks, but he ended up being the guy from all distances.

Against Wake Forest, we saw his longest attempt from 51 yards nearly miss to the left. When a kicker misses, you might think it snowballs into many more. For Weitz, it was quite the opposite.

With the absurd winds in Death Valley, he was worried about so much more than nearly missing it and ended up hitting a kick he was proud of.

“I hit the ball as good as I could, I just didn’t assess the wind as good as I could’ve. I started at middle-right, close to the right post. The wind was howling right to left in that end zone,” Weitz said. “It was pretty strong wind, I just didn’t think I played the wind enough but talking about how I hit the ball. I walked off to the sideline like, ‘I couldn’t have hit the ball any better.’ It was exactly my line, exactly how I wanted to hit it. Honestly gave me way more confidence running back out there.”

Confidence is everything for a kicker, and Weitz has it even in a tough moment. If there’s anything that should make fans take a sigh of relief about the kicking situation, it’s that. This bodes well for the Tigers because at some point, they’ll need him to come through in a big moment and that belief is crucial to do so.