Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Borregales is living the dream
Already making big kicks for Hurricanes, he says he can stretch it to 70
Miami Hurricanes kicker Jose Borregales said his phone wouldn’t stop blowing up through Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
Family, friends, fans and anyone else on social media who watched UM’s 47-34 win at Louisville on ABC were all buzzing about his career-long 57-yard field goal on a 4-for-4 night on the national stage.
For Borregales, making big kicks in prime time for the Hurricanes is a “dream come true,” but it’s also one that didn’t come right away.
As a standout high school kicker at Miami Booker T. Washington, he thought he had chance to play for Miami then, but the Hurricanes were set at the position with Michael Badgley
— who is now kicking for the Los Angeles Chargers — going into his junior season in 2016. They didn’t need to recruit another kicker until two years later, and the the only other FBS school in his hometown, FIU, gave Borregales a shot.
“I had been coming to these camps, the UM camps, for years,” Borregales said. “My junior year of high school, I actually had the potential to even get a scholarship because I won the entire camp as a junior, but that didn’t end up happening.
“Just went on trying to get a scholarship, didn’t get one until the start of my senior year, which was FIU. The very next day, I committed, knowing that, as a kicker, you don’t really get scholarships like that unless you’re a top guy at a camp.”
Miami and Borregales’ alternate paths converged on Nov. 23. Borregales made three field goals, including two from 50 yards or more, in the Panthers’ historic upset of the Hurricanes at Marlins Park. All the while, UM had suffered four earlier losses that were directly affected by mishaps in the kicking game en route to a disappointing 6-7 season.
Borregales’ younger brother, Andres, was already committed to the Hurricanes but as a high school junior in the 2021 recruiting class. With a need to move on from scholarship kicker Bubba
Baxa, who went 5-for-10 on field goals and missed two extra points in 2019, Miami was set to search the transfer market for immediate help. With Jose Borregales already an FIU graduate, he could freely transfer without sitting out a season.
“That whole season, I never thought about transferring,” Borregales said. “I just thought about making kicks and finishing the season the best I can. After the season, that’s when I sat down with the family and talked about my options and see what I can do.
“Transferring was one of the best options for me.”
UM special teams coach Jonathan Patke reached out to him.
“That’s kind of when I knew that’s where I would end up,” Borregales said.
While an in-game career long, Borregales wasn’t surprised to make a 57-yarder against Louisville. He was making them from 60 yards with room to spare in warmups at Cardinal Stadium, and he says his longest make in practice has been from 70 yards.
“It’s great for me to be able to show out on a stage like that,” he said. “That’s the reason why I transferred: to just get my name out there to hopefully make it to the next level, show that I could do this at any level possible. I like playing in big stages like that. That’s when the best of you comes out.”
It’s the big stage again for Borregales as the Hurricanes host rival Florida
State at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday night, in prime time again and in a series that has had its share of critical kicks go awry.
The historic wide rights and wide left for FSU in the rivalry were too long ago to be prominent in Borregales’ memory. He was either too young when they happened or not even born yet. The special teams blunder that does stick in his head is when FSU blocked the game-tying extra point at Hard Rock Stadium in 2016, the last time the Seminoles topped the Hurricanes.
“That really, that sucked,” Borregales said. “That’s the only one that comes to mind. Other than that, I know that Florida State is known for [wide rights and a wide left].”
Borregales enters the FSU matchup with awareness that the Seminoles have blocked three kicks — two field goals and an extra point — but says a kicker can’t change his mechanics due to that because that’s when you get under a ball, losing range.
When he lines up for a field goal against the Seminoles, he’ll look to be as calm and collected as he was with the nonchalance shown after his 57-yard make.
“I try to be a professional, not get too excited because I have a tendency of over-celebrating sometimes,” he said. “Not thinking about if it’s going to go in or not, just worrying about my mechanics and being technically sound.”