In reviewing the pleasant surprises from the 1-11 2017 season — an exercise that shouldn’t take very long — don’t forget to include place kicker Gabriel Rui.
In his first season as KU’s kicker, Rui brought the 3-pointer back to the football program in a way it hadn’t been seen in a long, long time.
Rui was as reliable a performer as KU had last season. He made all 23 extra-point kicks. OK, no trophy for that. He led the Big 12 with an accuracy rate of 85 percent on field goals. More impressive. He kicked a career-long 50-yarder at Oklahoma State. Now we’re talking. Now for the best indication of how well he did: Rui made 6 of 7 field goals from beyond 40 yards. That’s a comforting thing for an offensive coordinator to know he has at his disposal.
A native of Hinton, Okla., Rui did not get on the field in 2016 and watched Matthew Wyman have his best year in a Kansas uniform (13 of 19 field goals). As a result, Rui was able to count his first year at Kansas as a redshirt and he’s back. As a result, gaining field position to attempt field goals will be a far greater challenging than cashing in with three points. As recently as 2015, Kansas made only six field goals all season, just nine the year before that.
