🏈 Tides biggest obstacle to winning?

[son of tradition]

I have watched over and over our games from last year. The key component to our loses, besides the turn overs in the oppositions red zones, is the lack of a kicker putting points on the board. Forgive me but the cliche "every one had a hand" isn't true. There is no other player that has the opportunity to single handedly put the points on the board as many times as the kicker.

It seems through our great coach's tenure it has been our weakest link. A few questions if I may.

Does our kicking get better?

Why do we have so much trouble finding greatness in this position when we are so good at finding unmatched talent in multiple other positions?

Thanks for your time.

 

[TerryP]

Issues with kickers hasn't been something we've just started dealing with under this coaching staff. How Jamie Christensen got the nickname "money" is a question. He was around 65% on FG's in 2005. However, none of those misses resulted in a game being lost.

In all my years of watching football I've yet to see a coach who could talk a kicker out of the "yips" when he gets screwed up between the ears.

 

[son of tradition]

Thanks for commenting Terry. So are you saying the problem does not lie in the talent but, in whatever the kickers going through? Are there not kickers out there that do not get frazzled? What have you heard about the talent for next year. I could have sworn we were having troubles in the spring game with kicking as well.

 

[TerryP]

Talent certainly comes into play. Evaluation is probably one of the hardest to do in collegiate football. A lot of people will point to the kicking block as something kickers have to adjust to being without but it's more about mechanics than the block itself. When these guys are moving to collegiate ball without the kicking block the entire kick changes. The biggest change is where the foot is planted. Work backwards from there in your mind and you can see how different one is compared to the other.

Cade's last game was crazy. A miss from 44 yards certainly bothered him. That's well within his range. His second kick was blocked. So, going into his third how can he not be thinking about the first miss, the block...and he misses again. You know is mental process was shot to hell at that point. If kickers lose their mental edge in the NFL—even veterans kickers—for a game I don't see how a college kid could be immune.

Adam Griffith missed more FG's than he made in the spring game. He's considered to a talent kicker. Another frosh will be here in fall camp who was labeled as a punter during the recruiting cycle this past winter/spring. JK Scott hopefully will put a little competition in the game. He can punt and kick (strong leg, had a 55+ yarder last year in high school.) There's an invited walk-on coming in the fall as well. Gunner, Gunther...Rayburn, maybe? I'd have to look to make sure I'm getting it right.

We did have two guys here during the spring that were kicking coaches. We don't have a "kicking coach," per se, on our staff. I don't know if there's a GA, or Administrative guy who works with them. Most staffs don't carry a kicking coach.

Your concerns are valid; shared as well.

 

[UAgrad93]

HS get their kickers off a damn soccer field and then get them to coach themselves on kicking a football as opposed to a soccer ball. The recruitment of a kicker is more of a crap shoot than any other position. No college program carries a coach specifically for a kicker. If you ever go to a practice, you will see punters and kickers off to themselves with a bag of footballs. Dr. Elko may be on retainer for our kickers only!! Like Terry said, miss one, you start to think, miss two or have it blocked= FRIED BRAIN!!