From this week's issue of Sports Illustrated On Campus http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/sioncampus/02/28/feel0303/ You may have to scroll down a bit.
Wow his teammates where trying to get at him. Some team. Maybe his teammates should look in the mirror. I didnt know that the score was 1-0 and the missed XP cost them the game. They are the ones who let LSU score, and conversely our Kicker can tell the same story... Multiple times (See Auburn)
It's always kind of silly to think that one play blows a game but in essense it does. On that given play you either win or lose. Nothing to that point matters. Every play leads to the final outcome...a botched defensive assignment (Iowa 2005), a questionable penalty (Auburn 2004), a missed extra point (Auburn 2004), a bad pass leading to a touchdown saving interception(Oklahoma 2004) a lucky play after a botched pass route (Georgia 2003). Some of these were in our favor...some were not but it boils down to if this play had gone the other way then we win (or have another oppurtunity) or we lose. Now at no time should one player be blamed for the miscue BUT if he had done what he was supposed to do...
I don't buy this argument. When your sole existence on the football team is to trot on the field a few times a game and kick a ball 17 yards through two poles that are a mile apart, you better at least hit at a 95% clip. missing three in one game is intolerable. I would have stuffed that kid in the trash can before he hit the shower.
"The other team's kicker got to me first. He tried to console me. " You gotta love that quote, the LSU kicker, whichever one that was early in the year went over to console the guy. I guess it takes another kicker to understand what he was going through. I like that, the games is over, we won, but it's all still about the people. I like the fact that Saban recruited and trained the guys to be bigger than some of what goes on in sports. I was watching a replay of LSU vs. Miss St. on the internet and when we made first downs etc.. they just tossed it to the ump and get back in the huddle. There was passion, but at the right times and for the right reasons.
remember what roethesberger said after we spanked Miami O a few years back? he emailed Saban to tell him that the tigers were the classiest and respectful team he had ever faced. Let's hope that has been instilled in this program and will never change.
Our kicker must have talked to him about those 2 missed field goals... Everyone talks about serna(?) costing OSU those points, well, Jackson missed out on 6 for LSU..
Surely you're not saying that it's easy to come off the bench, with all that pressure on you, and deliver 95% of the time--all the while, knowing you're a student--not a professional? Granted, I understand, that at this level, you should be good enough to make PAT's--but "stuff" happens. That field was in terrible shape, and I'm not surprised that he missed all of those..... But he did show that he IS a solid kicker. He made 16-of-17 of his FG's the rest of the season.
1. It's more like 30 yards, not 17. 2. If you think it's all that easy to kick a ball 30 yards through the uprights, with 92,000 people screaming at you and 11 behemoths racing towards you trying to take your head off, then by all means, you should walk-on. Les Miles is liable to need somebody like you that can kick XPs with such unabated confidence.
