UCLA’s Kai Forbath is a kick in the clutch

UCLA kicker Kai Forbath jogged onto the field with one second left. Danny Rees, his holder, offered encouragement.

“I just told him, ‘It’s getting late, let’s knock this thing through and get out of here,’ ” Rees said.

Replied Forbath: “I told him, ‘Just put the ball down and be quiet.’ ”

Forbath, confident and businesslike, buried the 51-yard field goal for a 17-14 victory over Oregon State on Nov. 6.

“Death, taxes and Forbath,” was how Coach Rick Neuheisel framed it. There may be no better way to look at it.

Forbath could be kicking around the NFL right now. Instead, he came back to UCLA for his senior year and to get his degree — toting along the 2009 Lou Groza Trophy, which is given annually to the nation’s top kicker.

His return has been a bit bumpy. A groin injury sidelined him in August. And he has had fewer field-goal attempts, making the possibility of repeating as a consensus All-American slim. Last season he was 28 for 31. This season he is 11 for 15 with only three games remaining.

Even a bowl game is iffy, given that the Bruins are 4-5 heading into Thursday’s game at Washington.

There is nothing iffy, though, with Forbath.

“Most kickers go through ups and downs, whether they are in high school, college or the pros,” said former UCLA kicker Chris Sailer, who runs the kicking school where Forbath has honed his skills. “Every now and then, there is a kicker who is different. You have to erase your memory and move on to the next kick. That’s Kai.”

A bad day for Forbath? He missed a 46-yard field goal that would have put UCLA ahead with 1 minute 17 seconds left against Oregon State. He then won the game with the 83rd field goal of his career, two shy of John Lee’s UCLA record and four short of the NCAA record held by Georgia’s Bill Bennett.

“He joked afterward that he missed on purpose so he could have a more dramatic game-winner,” Rees said.

It’s all part of the what-me-worry mental makeup.

When Forbath lines up a kick, “he finds a pretty girl in the stands and kicks the ball to her,” Rees said. “That shows how calm he is.”

Not every kicker is able to pull that off.

Thomas Weber, Arizona State’s struggling kicker and the 2007 Groza Trophy winner, told the Arizona Republic last month, “My life right now is 18 feet wide.”

The spotlight can shine or glare. One writer referred to Weber as the “poster boy” for Arizona State’s near-miss season.

Hours after Forbath beat Oregon State, Weber set up across town and shanked a 42-yard try that would have beaten USC. Forbath, a close friend in the kicker tribe, watched the kick in anguish.

Weber knew as he hit it, putting his palms together as if praying, then dropping his head in resignation. Forbath, on the other hand, never looked up after his kick.

“I knew it was good,” Forbath said. “Of course, Danny’s fist pump gave it away.”

Life, for Forbath, extends beyond the 18 feet between uprights.

“I don’t let that be my thing,” he said. “I guess it is at times, but I can’t over-think things. You go in there thinking you’re going to miss, you stop focusing on your technique. Then you will miss.”

That simple mind-set sets Forbath apart.

Sailer said that during camps, “Kai would make mistakes during the morning workouts, but when it was time to go head to head against another guy, and there were more eyes on him, Kai won everything.”

Forbath, 23, is as meticulous as any kicker, which means he borders on obsessive — his right cleat, for example, has to be three sizes too small to create a better kicking surface. But he also surfs, plays golf and has become addicted to video games through his roommate, long snapper Christian Yount.

“Kai says he goes to the library to study because the video games make too much noise,” Yount said. “But it’s really because he knows he won’t get any work done [in his room] because he’ll be playing ‘Call of Duty.’ ”

The call of the NFL was easier to resist. Forbath window-shopped after last season but said, “I wasn’t ready mentally.”

UCLA special teams coach Frank Gansz Jr., a former NFL assistant, said NFL accountability can be severe.

“Like [ Baltimore Ravens linebacker] Ray Lewis, if somebody doesn’t line up right on defense, he was on their butt,” Gansz said.

But Gansz also knows, “Kai has what it takes to be successful under that discipline. Look at the other night, he missed one and then went right back out there and made one.”

chris.foster@latimes.com

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