Kicker Cole Netten doesn’t remember the kick as well as he would like. For the most part, it’s all a blur.

During the Cy-Hawk game last season,  Netten walked out with the rest of the field goal team in a game tied at 14. He lined up to potentially win the coveted trophy that, as an Iowan himself, he knew the importance of.

As he kicked it, he didn’t think, he just did. He didn’t watch it the entire way, knowing he had just put his team ahead in the closing moment.

“Kicking it was all just a blur,” Netten said. “It all just came down to muscle memory. It was something I had done a million times, so my body just did it. I didn’t watch it the entire way because when I kicked it I knew it was going in.”

Now almost a year removed from the kick, Netten and the rest of the Cyclones will take on the Hawkeyes on Saturday.

During the week of the annual Iowa-Iowa State football game, the kick may stand out for many fans of Iowa college football.

But a poor start to the 2015 season may make this week’s preparation more difficult for Netten.

Netten started the season on the wrong foot in Iowa State’s blowout victory against Northern Iowa on Saturday night. His first field goal attempt, a 39-yard kick in the first quarter, sailed just right.

ISU coach Paul Rhoads, who called Netten the best kicker in the Big 12 before the season, talked to Netten after the unusual miss. He attributed the mistake to nerves from the sellout crowd of 61,500 at Jack Trice Stadium.

“He said on the first one his leg felt like jelly,” Rhoads said. “He was nervous in front of the crowd. It happens. He didn’t hit it well.”

His second miss may have stemmed a little bit from the first one, as Netten may have been trying to compensate.

Lining up from 41 yards out, he made a mistake that would have put the Cyclones ahead by six points early in the game.

“The second [miss] was fundamentals and technique,” Rhoads said. “I’m not pleased [with the misses] but I’m not concerned. … He doesn’t leave me a lot of room for concern.”

Netten missed three field goals in the 2014 season, going 11-for-14. He is already two-thirds of the way there after his first game.

He did get the monkey off his back at the end of the second half, kicking one through the uprights from 24 yards out. Even with the two misses, Netten’s mind hasn’t wondered back to them as much. He has mastered the mindset of “on to the next one,” which is important as a kicker. Kickers have little opportunity to make an impact on the game, so the ability to block out mistakes is almost a necessity.

“The thing with kicking is that it is 80 percent mind and 20 percent physical,” Netten said. “If you don’t know how to move on from that one kick then good luck going on the next one. I definitely think that misses make you a better kicker.”

For kickers and Netten, confidence is the focal point of every week’s preparation. With the reminiscence of last season’s win, he can draw on that feeling to get ready for Saturday’s game against Iowa.

“I think a big thing is confidence,” Netten said. “It’s about what I’ve done in the past. It’s something that you’ve got to keep up in your mind. You’ve been there and you’ve done it so it’s nothing different than what I’m going to do next week.”

Netten has family and friends, like many other Iowan natives, on both sides of the rivalry. It made for good fun when he won the game for the Cyclones last season.

He wouldn’t mind being in a game-winning position against Iowa on Saturday, but he’d rather have his team win the game for him.

“As much as I’d like to [kick the game-winning field goal] again, hopefully we win by a little more than three points this time,” Netten said.