Duncan’s career took a new path to the bench just a few games after his Michigan triumph. As soon as the true freshman hero made his impact felt in Kinnick, he was forced to watch from the sidelines.

Miguel Recinos replaced Duncan for the next two seasons, hitting 11-of-13 field goals in 2017 before going 17-for-22 in 2018.

Duncan endured the two seasons without attempting a single kick.

“It was very humbling,” Duncan said. “It was a great learning experience sitting on the bench for those two years. I got to learn different techniques, different mindsets, and also different routines… My job when I was on the bench was to basically be like, ‘OK if I was the starter, what would I do here? Where would my focus be? What’s my mindset?’”

The two helped each other even after Recinos took over. Recinos said they had two different kicking styles, so he couldn’t help as much from a technical perspective, but he still found ways to get through to Duncan.

Recinos started studying sports psychology and met with a sports psychologist regularly. He studied textbooks and listened to podcasts on the subject.

With that, Recinos said, he helped Duncan learn how to talk to himself and how to approach certain situations that kickers face.

Duncan never wavered, even though he wasn’t receiving playing time on the field.

“There’s certain individuals where they just have this presence about them where, especially when you start going through hardships, you really get the measure of a man,” Recinos said. “[Duncan’s] always had this ability to focus on what he needs to do. Even when things are tough, even when he has every excuse to kind of give up or start to pack it in, he really rises to the occasion.”