Keith Duncan is being rewarded for having stayed the course at Iowa, which he now calls home
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Keith Duncan is from North Carolina, but he now calls Iowa City his home because it just feels that way to him.
If anybody personifies the spirit of once a Hawkeye, always a Hawkeye, it’s the Iowa football team’s walk-on junior kicker from Waddington, N.C.
Duncan has made all eight of his field-goal attempts heading into Saturday’s game against Middle Tennessee State and is one of just five college kickers to be perfect on at least eight attempts.
“I couldn’t imagine myself kicking anywhere else,” Duncan said Tuesday. “I’ve said this multiple times, Iowa is like a home now. I only get to go back to North Carolina twice a year, so this is where I live. I have an Iowa driver’s license now, so that’s pretty cool, and I’d love to live here after football.”
It is easy to be happy and to stay motivated when you’re a starter and performing well on the field, as is the case with Duncan right now.
But Duncan’s time as a Hawkeye hasn’t always been easy.
He went from being the starting kicker as a true freshman, who beat Michigan on a last-second field goal in 2016, to a reserve throughout the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
It was almost as if Duncan had disappeared for two years because the non-starters rarely have much interaction with the media.
“It was very humbling,” Duncan said.
Duncan could’ve easily bolted from Iowa after it became apparent that Miguel Recinos would be the starting kicker in 2017 and 2018.
Iowa City is a long way from Duncan’s home in North Carolina, and he also was paying his own way to school as a walk-on, and still is now.
And yet, Duncan stayed the course and never became bitter because Iowa City felt like home, even as a reserve.
Of course, Duncan hated losing his starting position to Recinos, who used up his eligibility last season, but Duncan greatly admired and respected the people associated with the Iowa football program, and with the University of Iowa as a whole.
“The people here make Iowa, Iowa,” Duncan said. “And again, I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else.”
Instead of transferring, Duncan embraced the culture and the mindset at Iowa under head coach Kirk Ferentz. Duncan was determined to finish what he had started at Iowa and losing his starting position only strengthened his resolve.
“I kind of had to shift my mindset to being like, hey, now’s the time to get going and time to work and you will become a better kicker rather than transferring and kind of taking the easy way out,” Duncan said.
It also helped that Duncan liked and respected Recinos as they became friends instead of bitter rivals.
“We’re really good friends, we still go eat every Thursday,” Duncan said of Recinos, who is from Mason City. “He’s a great guy, a great team player.
“And it gets down to our goal as an individual on this team is to improve the team. And I knew that if I had a bitter attitude towards not playing, or Miguel, then it would not help our team at all. It would just take us down.”
Recinos also had been Duncan’s backup in 2016, so they both knew how each other felt as the backup.
“We had a lot of conversations about that,” Duncan said. “That was difficult for him. He came in thinking he was going to start. And being from Iowa and playing for the Hawkeyes, whoa, who wouldn’t want that right?
“So we had a great talk about that. It was hard for him to sit on the bench that year, and then it was hard for me to sit on the bench for the next two years. So losing the job for both of us, also helped us improve our game.”
Duncan believes that he will benefit later in life from having stayed the course at Iowa and from honoring his commitment.
He also credits football for helping to make him the person he is today.
“My mom’s going to hate this, but I’ve learned more in football than I have in school basically, just about life lessons,” Duncan said. “There is not a price that you could put on what I’ve learned here on the football team, just mental toughness and how to be a man, how to have great family when you’re older and be dad.
“Just all that stuff that you don’t learn in school. So yeah, this has been a great program for me and I love it here.”
Duncan has certainly earned the trust, respect and admiration from Kirk Ferentz, who was asked at his weekly press conference on Tuesday to comment on Duncan’s unusual journey from being a starter who made one of the greatest field goals in program history as a true freshman, to a reserve for two seasons and now to a starter again.
“It's a real credit to him, and what a great moment, if nothing else had happened in his career, what a great moment,” Ferentz said of Duncan’s game-winning field goal against Michigan. “But fortunately, he was motivated to push it further and he's had his ups and downs since that time, obviously. But I think the thing we've all noticed is he's been working extremely hard behind the scenes, especially this past year plus and last year Miguel was pretty firmly entrenched as our kicker. He was improving and working hard.”
Duncan credits his faith in God for giving him the right mindset to excel as a kicker.
“I think I said it after the Iowa State game, I said kicking free and that’s been kind of my motto this year, kicking free has been great for me," Duncan said. "I’m a pretty religious guy and having that trust in God and knowing that he’ll provide for you regardless if you make a kick or miss a kick, that’s the definition of kicking free to me. And that’s been the biggest part of my success this year.”
Even though he wasn't a starter in the previous two seasons, Duncan still benefited from the experience.
“It was a great learning experience sitting on the bench for those two years," Duncan said. "I got to learn different techniques, different mindsets and also different routines. And seeing the game from the sideline also helped my mindset a lot.”
Duncan credits former Iowa and NFL punter Jason Baker for helping to pave his way to being a Hawkeye. Baker punted for the NFL's Carolina Panthers from 2005-12 and he watched Duncan make four field goals once in high school and then contacted the Iowa coaches
Iowa assistant coach Seth Wallace then reached out to Duncan shortly after the 2016 Rose Bowl and asked if he had time to speak on the phone.
“I was like, yeah, sure, I hadn’t heard from Iowa ever before,” said Duncan, who was committed to Furman at the time. “That’s kind of a big shift. I got a call from him and he said, ‘hey, we’re super interested in you. We want you to come visit and it kind of went from there.”
Duncan still isn't on scholarship, but that should change if he keeps performing at his current level.
Duncan thanks his parents, and his grandparents, for sacrificing so he could pursue his dream in college.
"They know that I love it here," Duncan said. "And if I like it here, and if they know that I'm working my butt off every single day to try to become a scholarship-level kicker, then they're going to help me with that."