Is Brandon Coutu the new Mr. Clutch?

Published 11:36 pm Tuesday, August 19, 2008

RENTON — A few hours after hitting a game-winning field goal in his extensive action of the NFL preseason Saturday night, Seattle Seahawks rookie kicker Brandon Coutu arrived at his Northwest University dorm room to a welcome sight.

The door was locked, and nothing inside had been stolen.

Only one time during Coutu’s collegiate career at the University of Georgia had he hit a game-winning field goal as time expired. After that game, a 20-17 win over Vanderbilt last October, Coutu learned that the house he shared with two friends had been robbed.

“It’s probably one of the worst feelings I ve had,” Coutu said on Tuesday. “… We pretty much lost everything we owned. They got $10,000 worth of stuff.”

Among the missing items were irreplaceable gifts like a watch and an iPod, complete with the Chick-Fil-A Bowl insignia, that he got for participating in a 2006 bowl game. A flatscreen television, a laptop computer and three hunting rifles were also stolen from the house, which was ransacked in the process.

Fortunately, Coutu had no such drama on Saturday night.

While he could have lost something by missing the overtime kick — that being his standing in an ongoing competition with veteran Olindo Mare — Coutu gained a lot by making it. The rookie showed that he can deliver in the clutch, which is something he rarely got to do at Georgia.

“I had a buddy (at another school) who had three game-winners in one year,” Coutu said. “I was jealous. I wasn’t getting any of those chances. “But in the NFL, the level of the playing field is just so even.”

Coutu and Mare are battling for the right to replace the most clutch kicker in Seahawks history. Josh Brown hit six game-winning field goals during his four years in Seattle, including an NFL record-tying four in one season (2006).

Replacing the kicker who became known as Mr. Clutch will be no easy task for the Seahawks. But special teams coach Bruce DeHaven said that the team had a pretty good feeling about Coutu’s ability to hit pressure field goals even before Saturday’s game-winner.

“He’s going to be fine with that,” DeHaven said of the Seahawks’ seventh-round draft pick. “He kicked for a national-championship team, on a team that he basically had to go out every week and win his job because they had several good kickers.”

Because Coutu had just one game-winner in college, the Seahawks had to find other ways to evaluate his ability to deliver in the clutch. DeHaven met with Coutu during the scouting process, at which time he tried to get a feel for the 23-year-old kicker’s mental makeup.

“You got a good feeling talking to him,” DeHaven said. “Sometimes you talk to guys and you get a little feeling of false bravado, and sometimes you talk to a guy who has genuine confidence. … That’s what you have to do; you can’t tell just by watching them kick.”

Coutu, who made 79.7 percent of his field goal attempts at Georgia, said not to be fooled by his shortage of chances at game-winners.

“I played in a big conference, and we had a lot of big games,” said Coutu, whose Bulldogs won two Southeastern Conference East Division titles while he was there. “I had a lot of kicks late in games, with a minute-something left, where it felt like it might be the last opportunity.

“Sometimes it’s the luck of the draw when it comes to last-second kicks. But I feel like I’ve played in a lot of hostile environments away from home, and I feel like I’m prepared that way.”

Given his first chance as a Seahawk — albeit in a preseason game — Coutu delivered under pressure.

And this time, he got to go home and celebrate.

“It was definitely a relief,” Coutu said of finding his dorm room like he left it.

For the Seahawks, seeing a post-Brown kicker hit a game-winning field goal was quite a relief as well.