Christopher Dunn continues NC State kicking legacy started by Jerry Warren

A few days after NC State placekicker Christopher Dunn missed all three field goal attempts in NC State’s double-overtime victory over Clemson last season, former Wolfpack kicker Jerry Warren sent Dunn an email message of support.

“Please tell Christopher that everything is all good,” Warren wrote. “We won. Tell him just keep doing the same conditioned reflex motion. Don’t change anything. Don’t over-analyze it.

“He’s the best we ever had.”

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Those were not the prevailing thoughts that Dunn found in his inbox the week after that win. He received unkind words, ridicule and even death threats. He deactivated all of his social media accounts and stopped listening to words from those he didn’t know.

“Those were probably my lowest days in college,” Dunn said. “I feel like I let everyone down: myself, my team, my family.

“I had to take a hard look in the mirror after that game.”

It’s a strategy that seems to have worked for the fifth-year kicker from Lexington, North Carolina, who became the Wolfpack’s all-time leading scorer last season.

Since those three uncharacteristic misses against the Tigers, Dunn has made 27 of 28 field goal attempts, including all 14 he’s tried this season. The only kickers in NC State history with double-digit attempts who made all their field goals in a single season are Danny Deskevich (12-for-12 in 1998) and Marc Primanti (20-for-20) in 1996).

It’s a run of successful kicks that is familiar to Warren, who set the NCAA record with 17 field goals in 22 attempts during the Wolfpack’s record-breaking 1967 season, which ended with a school-record ninth victory in a 14-7 decision against Georgia in the Liberty Bowl.

While the Pack’s defense got all the attention with its white shoes, Warren steadily scored points with his black square-toed kicking boot.

As a senior, however, Warren missed five field goals in the season-opener against Wake Forest, a game in which the Wolfpack squeaked out a 10-6 victory that helped Earle Edwards’ squad win the 1968 ACC championship, the final of the veteran coach’s five league titles.

“From that first game through the rest of the season, all I had to do was concentrate on staying concentrated,” Warren says. “I kept my head screwed on straight. I felt like I recovered satisfactorily.”

Warren made 8 of his final 10 attempts that season and finished his college career with a school-record 26 field goals made. He was drafted in the 10th round of the 1969 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals, but never kicked in a regular-season game.

At the end of preseason camp, just before the team headed to St. Louis, Warren dived into a pool, going head-first into the 8-foot floor. He fractured his skull, knocked out his front teeth and suffered a compression fracture of two vertebrae. He needed the rest of the season to recover. The following year, he spent time with the Green Bay Packers, but was cut before the beginning of the season.

In 1971, he went to camp with the Boston Patriots, but ended up spending the season kicking for the Norfolk Neptunes of the Atlantic Coast Football League. In 1974, he kicked for the World Football League’s Philadelphia Bell for former Neptunes coach Ron Waller.

Afterwards, he put his NC State chemical engineering degree to use by repairing nuclear-powered submarines at the Norfolk shipyard.

Warren went to work for a Durham envelope manufacturing company in 1979, spending 22 years there before taking a retirement package to work for a Durham hospital and the North Carolina Education Lottery.

At 75, he still works part time for Sports Durst Automotive Group, delivering parts around the Triangle. He’s also one of Dunn’s biggest fans, even though they have little in common other than their slight stature.

Warren — a native of Newport News, Virginia, who graduated from Elizabeth City (N.C.) High School before coming to NC State — was a straight-on toe kicker who never kicked a field goal over 50 yards. He tried to convert to the soccer style when he played professionally, but he never got the hang of it.

Dunn is similar in size to the 5-foot-8 Warren, but is fully soccer style, which gives him more power and accuracy. He twice hit 53-yarders during the 2020 season.

The two record-setters, however, do speak the same language of high-performing football specialists. They are part of NC State’s underappreciated kicking legacy that includes a pair of Super Bowl winners (Mike Cofer and Steven Hauschka), a Lou Groza Award winner (Primanti) and one of the longest field goals in ACC history (Damon Hartman, 56 yards, 1990).

Warren and Dunn both compare kicking to their golf games. Warren was a low-handicap player for years until he had both hips replaced. Dunn enjoys it as well.

“Kicking field goals is like putting: If you look up too soon, you get to watch it miss,” Warren said. “It’s all about consistency. Don’t make any changes. A placekicker changing something is worse than changing your putting stroke.”

That’s advice Dunn did not follow, however. After the Clemson wake-up call, Dunn made 13 of his final 14 field goal attempts. Along the way, he became NC State’s all-time leading scorer.

Yet he then spent his time between last season and this one going to several kicking camps, tweaking his approach, his contact point and his follow-through.

The results, so far, have been perfect. Dunn is 14-for-14 this season and, in his fifth year of on-field participation, is approaching several national and Atlantic Coast Conference records.

He is currently tied for seventh among FBC schools in career field goals with 83 in five seasons. He has a chance to become just the third FBS placekicker to make 90 or more, joining Arizona State’s Zane Gonzalez (96) and Auburn’s Daniel Carlson (92). The ACC record is held by national third-place Dustin Hopkins (88) of Florida State. Others ahead of Dunn are Georgia’s Billy Bennett (87), UCLA’s Kai Forbath (85) and Utah’s Andy Phillips (84).

Dunn also has been perfect in his career in point-after-touchdown attempts, making all 190 so far. He’s looking to become just the third kicker in NCAA FBS history to make 200 attempts without a miss. Texas Tech’s Alex Trlica (2004-07) made all 233 attempts in his career and Ohio State’s Sean Nuernberger (2014-18) made 216 without a miss and Georgia’s Rodrigo Blankenship (2016-19) made all 200.

The ACC record without a miss is held by Florida State’s Robert Aguayo, who made all 198 from 2013-15.

“I think Christopher’s consecutive PAT record is as impressive as anything he has done,” Warren said. “If you watch his kicks, they are amazingly consistent. He is rarely ever three or four feet away from dead center on every PAT he kicks.

“That shows an amazing amount of concentration.”

Wherever Dunn ends up in the record books, he will be near the top of every list, just as Warren was when his career ended more than five decades ago.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].