Even the chip shots have become an adventure.
With parity spreading, the difference between contending for a title and playing in the Alamo Bowl can be just a few points. Kickers may be more important than ever.
Three weeks into the college football season, kickers have provided many of the most memorable moments — both good and bad.
Defending BCS champ LSU has been at the center of the kicking follies.
The Tigers opened the season with the luckiest of victories, gift-wrapped by Oregon State redshirt freshman kicker Alexis Serna.
In his first game as the Beavers’ starter, Serna missed three extra points. The final shank came in overtime with a chance to tie. LSU avoided a loss that could have derailed its hopes of a repeat.
For the Tigers, a kicker losing his range was an oddly familiar occurrence. During their championship run last year, they benefited from bad games by two of the Southeastern Conference’s best — Billy Bennett and Jonathan Nichols — in wins over Georgia and Mississippi.
Another kicker looked like he would succumb to the Tigers’ odd hex on Saturday, when Auburn’s John Vaughn knocked a go-ahead PAT attempt wide left with just more than a minute left.
But LSU was apparently out of luck. A penalty gave Vaughn another attempt, which he made to give Auburn a 10-9 victory and the early lead in the SEC West.
LSU has had its own kicking issues. The Tigers found themselves a point short against Auburn because Ryan Gaudet missed a PAT. And Gaudet was only called on because starter Chris Jackson had already missed two extra points this season.
In the SEC East, Tennessee’s James Wilhoit went from goat to hero against Florida. The first missed extra point of the sophomore’s career left the Volunteers trailing 28-27 with less than four minutes left.
Like Vaughn, Wilhoit got a chance to redeem himself, but in a far more dramatic fashion. Wilhoit nailed a game-winning 50-yard field with 6 seconds left.
“Just because I made the field goal doesn’t make me more important than anybody else,” Wilhoit said. “We played 60 minutes, and we all made plays. It just happened that mine was the final one.”
Other kickers weren’t as fortunate as Wilhoit and Vaughn.
Arizona’s Nick Folk missed from 43 yards early in the game, then from 47 with less than a minute left and the Wildcats lost to Wisconsin 9-7.
San Diego State’s upset bid at Michigan was foiled by two failed field goal attempts in the fourth quarter by Garrett Palmer. The Aztecs lost 24-21, and the Wolverines avoided a second-straight loss that would have all but eliminated them from the national title hunt midway into September.
Michigan’s rival Ohio State is still unbeaten thanks to the stellar kicking of Mike Nugent — and a miss by Marshall’s Ian O’Connor two weeks ago.
The Buckeyes were in danger of being upset at home by Marshall in their second game, but O’Connor missed a 35-yard field goal with just more than three minutes left that would have given the Thundering Herd the lead. Nugent then won the game with a 55-yarder as time expired.
He followed that up by tying a school record with five field goals in a 22-14 win over North Carolina State on Saturday.
“If you know us, you know our
formula,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. “We tell our quarterbacks, ‘When we get to a certain point, we’ve got the three. Don’t foul up the three.’”
Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville doesn’t see kickers getting worse, just a few high-profile mishaps.
“It’s more than just the kicker. It starts with the snapper and holder, and everybody goes hand in hand. I don’t think it’s anything new,” he said.
Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe said all the close games and intense scrutiny might be taking a toll on kickers.
“I think it’s probably tougher emotionally,” said Cutcliffe, whose Rebels won their first game on Saturday with a field goal in overtime against Vanderbilt. “Plenty of close games come down to is that place-kicker going to hit. It used to be a game of inches, now it’s a game of toes.”
Still, many coaches are reluctant to use one of their precious 85 scholarships on kickers, leading to more walk-ons handling the important duties.
And if the NFL is any indication, it would appear that reliable kickers are getting harder to find. Gary Anderson and Morten Andersen, both over 40, are still on NFL rosters.
Unfortunately, neither has any college eligibility left.