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Kai Forbath has been one of the Vikings' unheralded standouts this season and having the best field-goal kicking season of his career.
His 22 field goals, out of 23 attempts, are already the second most of his career behind the 24 he made for Washington in 2014. His 95.7 field-goal percentage is second in the league, trailing only Greg Zuerlein of the Rams (96.6), who will face the Vikings on Sunday. Zuerlein leads the league in made field goals with 28.
But what is more surprising for Forbath than his accuracy has been his distance kicking. Forbath is tied for the league lead with five made field goals of 50 yards or more, after making a combined five field goals from that distance in five previous seasons. He has made a field goal of 50 yards or longer in four consecutive games.
When asked about those long-distance kicks, Forbath said nothing changes with his approach.
"I approach 50-yarders like I approach 20-yarders. I kick them the same," he said. "I don't try to kick them any harder or worry about the distance. I just try to have the same swing and same technique for every kick."
Forbath was asked if he considers this his best NFL season so far.
"That's the most [field goals] I've ever attempted in a year so far," he said. "The distance of field goals is out of my control. Whatever they need me to go kick, I'll go kick it.
"We've kicked a lot of field goals this year, and hopefully we're going to turn those into a lot of extra points now."
The Vikings were lucky when Forbath was available after the release of Blair Walsh last season. Forbath spent 2015 playing with the Redskins and Saints, but was released by New Orleans when he made only nine of 13 field-goal attempts in 10 games.
"Sometimes people just need a fresh start in different places, a clear mind-set, different reasons," he said. "The coaches make changes and I'm not in charge of that. I was very thankful for the opportunity to come here and I'm trying to go out each kick and succeed so I can stay here for a long time."
The lone knock on Forbath's season has been his extra-point kicking. He has made 17 of 21 kicks (81 percent), which is 28th in the NFL.
He said the field-goal unit, including holder Ryan Quigley and long snapper Kevin McDermott, has changed its approach because of the longer distance for conversion kicks.
"It's a thing where you have to change your mind-set," Forbath said. "It's not an extra point anymore. We don't even call it an extra point here, we call it a 33-yard field goal now. You see guys all around the league, it's not a gimme anymore like it used to be. Last game we made all five of them. We just go into the game with the mind-set that it's a field goal, and focus the same."
Smith breaks out
Junior running back Rodney Smith broke out of a mini-slump with 24 carries for 134 yards in the Gophers' 54-21 victory over Nebraska at TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday. The 134 yards were the most for Smith this season, and the 24 carries were his second-highest mark, behind his 30 carries in the Gophers' 48-14 victory at Oregon State in September.
Smith said coach P.J. Fleck had the right message in getting the team to break a two-game losing streak.
"It was all about response," Smith said. "We went to work last week at practice. We had a great week of practice and he made sure we were prepared. We learned from it and we knew we had to come out fast against Nebraska and finish the game. I think we did that."
Smith leads the team in rushing with 799 yards on 195 carries but has only three touchdowns. His rushing average of 4.1 yards per carry is actually the lowest of his career. Last year he had 1,158 yards on 240 carries (4.8 ypc) and 16 TDs.
Still, Smith sees the offensive line showing improvement after a slow start because of a lot of injuries heading into the season.
"They're getting better each and every week," he said. "Those guys definitely opened up some huge holes for all of us to run through — me, Kobe [McCrary] and Demry [Croft]. It's exciting when you see things like that. I'm proud of those guys. They've come a long way. In the springtime we only had four or five offensive linemen, so it is definitely exciting to see those guys out there and getting better."
One of the best things the Gophers did Saturday was run the option with Croft, who rushed for 183 yards — the most ever by a Gophers quarterback — which helped them to a season-high 409 yards on the ground.
"It was a thing of beauty," Smith said. "That's the great thing about having a quarterback that can run. They have to respect him and the running back. When the quarterback runs, it makes your life a lot easier as a running back."
The running attack will need to be even better Saturday against Northwestern, which is second in the Big Ten in run defense, allowing only 109.6 yards per game and 3.2 yards per carry.
Jottings
• Vikings seventh-round draft pick Ifeadi Odenigbo, currently on the practice squad, played at Northwestern and was named All-Big Ten first team last year when he led the league in sacks with 10. He talked about how the Wildcats, who will face the Gophers on Saturday, overcame a slow start last season: "We started off pretty bad, we went 1-3, but somehow we rallied and we became 7-6. We beat Pittsburgh [31-24 in the Pinstripe Bowl] and that was our third bowl win in Northwestern history."
• A big reason for the Wolves' improvement has been the play of their bench, and Jimmy Butler talked about their contribution in a 98-86 victory over San Antonio on Wednesday. "The bench really took the lead for us and changed the entire game," he said about the second quarter, when the Wolves outscored the Spurs 39-19. "They're just as good as the starting group. They play together, they move the ball, they guard."
• Former Gophers quarterback and Vikings assistant coach Marc Trestman is in his first season as coach of the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL. Trestman, who won back-to-back Grey Cups in 2009 and 2010 during his five seasons as the coach of the Montreal Alouettes, has the Argonauts playing host to Saskatchewan in the CFL Eastern Division final Sunday.
• The Gophers men's hockey team will face Harvard this weekend, and a neat connection there is the Wild's Chuck Fletcher is one of three NHL general managers who played college hockey at Harvard. The other two are Boston's Don Sweeney and Edmonton's Peter Chiarelli. Fletcher played junior varsity hockey at Harvard and graduated in 1990.
Sid Hartman can be heard on WCCO AM-830 at 8:40 a.m. Monday and Friday, 2 p.m. Friday and 10:30 a.m. Sunday. shartman@startribune.com