The Kicking Game

The kicking game sucks. I'm not talking about punting. Donnie Jones does a great job as long as the ball is not snapped over his head. Gaudet missed 2 short field goals against ULM. I gave him slack on that because of the weather and first game jitters especially after he made a 47 yarder against Arizona. Then tonight he missed one badly and so did Chris Jackson. If we can't get points from the placekickers in the SEC games its going to come back to haunt us. Over the years the Tigers have had kickers rangeing from great to horrible. Remember Wade Richey? Richey kicked a bunch of long field goals in high school and when he got to LSU his kicks were just as likely to hit the center in the back of his helmut as go through the uprights. Then Richey goes to the 49ers and is pretty good. The 49ers sent him to a psychologist and straigtened out his mental problems. Maybe placekicking is mostly mental as long as the kicker has the physical talent in the first place. TV announcers are always joking about kickers being a strange breed. Kris Brown missed 5 short field goals in a game as the Steelers kicker. Last Sunday he made 4 including the game winner with time running out for Houston on the road in Miami. I don't know how good Gaudet or Jackson were in high school but if they were recruited by LSU they must have been pretty good. The pressure a field goal kicker is under is way more than any other position. Its sort of like being a closer in baseball. A running back, a receiver or a quarterback is not expected to score points on every single play he is involved in in the game. A kicker is expected to score points every time he enters the game and his toe touches the ball. A quarterback can engineer a drive with his team behind by 2 or 3 points and the clock running down to put the team in position for the last second field goal if he can't get a touchdown out of the drive. Some kickers thrive on this situation and come up big time in the clutch just like a baseball closer like Mariano Rivera or John Smoltz who isn't in the game very much of the time but when he is in the game he is the man who will win it or lose it. Like Adam Viniteri did in the blizzard in New England against the Raiders in the AFC championship game and then again in the Superbowl after his quarterback had gotten his team in position with time running out. And like Morton Andersen has done with consistency in his long NFL career.

Can Gaudet and Jackson benefit from counseling sessions with a sports psychologist like Wade Richey did, at least for one year?

When I was at LSU there were almost every day a group of foreign students, mostly Latinos on the Parade Grounds playing soccer. Some of them could really kick the hell out of a soccer ball. When I drive past the gates of LSU on Nicholson Drive I still frequently see a soccer game going on at the big field past the gates. Has it ever occured to anybody on the LSU coaching staff to go out and watch these guys? Pick out the guys who look like the best kickers and give them a tryout. I would be almost willing to bet the mortgage that they would find a great kicker. Jan Stenerud had never even seen a football game until the Kansas City Chiefs gave him the job as their place kicker. Now Stenerud is in the NFL Hall of Fame.

"Futaball has been bery bery goood to me"

 

The problem with our kicking game is we don't have a scholarship player recruited for placekicking duties. Gaudet is a walk-on, and Chris Jackson was signed out of high school as a punter, IIRC. Whatever happened to Andre' Boagni? He was supposed to be contending for the placekicker job in two-a-days, but I haven't heard a peep about him since. Is he even still on the team?

We had the #1 recruiting class in the country last year, but did not go out and get a top-notch kicker, knowing that John Corbello was a graduating senior? Anybody else think that was short-sighted of Coach Saban? This is an important position. Tough SEC games frequently come down to game-winning kicks in the final seconds. I know some people and some coaches despise "wasting" a scholarship on "just a kicker." But a clutch placekicker is worth his weight in gold. Ask Bobby Bowden how valuable Sebastian Janikowski was in getting Florida St. to three national title games. Janikowski earned his scholarship many times over.

But that's a discussion for next year. Right now, we're stuck with what we have. For now, I favor sticking with Gaudet. Distance is not the issue with him, it's accuracy. And that can be improved, but only with countless hours of practice, which I am sure he will be getting this week. Also, it might not be such a bad idea to consult a sports psychologist. Kicking has a huge mental component, and when a kicker hits a dry spell, the snowball effect starts and it can be devastating. He's got to block the miscues out and focus on getting better.

Let's hope it does get cleared up by next Saturday. I guarantee you, the Georgia game is gonna be one of those tough games that comes down to the final minute in the 4th quarter. We may need a field goal to pull it out.

 

Janikowski was a nutcase for the Criminoles and still is with the Raiders but he can kick. I think he had at least one of those wide left or wide right kicks that kept the Criminoles from beating the Cane smugglers.

I'm sure Gaudet and Jackson both have had many of hours and hundreds of kicks in practice. If they look good in practice and choke in a real game the problem is 100% mental. Why not scout some of the foreign students who look good kicking a soccer ball. They just might come up with somebody who would be great either because they would feel no pressure because they have they have never even seen a football game or some kid from Venezueala or Nicaraugua who see's it as a chance to get himself and his family out of 3rd world poverty and comes up big time. This is not going to happen between now and Saturday when the real season starts against Georgia. I hope the game dosen't come down to a win or lose field goal try but if it does and Gaudet or Jackson or whoever it is makes the kick for the game winner it just might give him the confidence to become a good kicker.

 

I don’t think there were very many top rated kickers last year. I think the picking was slim. Some people may think the idea of looking at these soccer players on campus is not the way to find a kicker. I happen to believe it’s very possible. I know this example is not FB, however the point is the same.

I coached 11 & 12 year old baseball in Cameron parish several years ago. We had a very good team. A young man had just moved into the community came out and wanted to play. I sent him to the coach of another team we had, and that coach sent him back to me, saying his squad was full. We had room and I took him on.

I really believe I had the best pitchers in the league before this kid arrived. This young man went 7-1 as a pitcher, filled in as a catcher and was awesome at the plate. His only loss was in a tournament and it was my fault, because I told him where I wanted the location of the pitches. He had struck out the best hitter in the league twice in this game on high fastballs. He had two strikes off high fastballs, and I instructed him to throw another. The kid politely hit a home run that gave them the win. This kid had the most control of a pitcher I have ever seen. We won the parish championship and Brian contributed greatly to that success. I don’t like to think about sending him away without even letting him try. I’ve coached baseball several years and was fortunate for my teams to never experience a losing record. I will say the aforementioned team and players gave me more enjoyment, watching them play than any team I ever had. Brian was special and I’ll never forget this youngster teaching me such a valuable lesson.

 

I agree. This kicking is pitiful!!!!!!! A few of our games will probably come down to 3 pointers. If not a game winning field goal, it will be the 6 or 9 ...points we have made in the first 3 quarters of the game when we could not get a first or touchdown. We must be able to kick 30 and 40 yarders with a level of confidence. When you start to feel extra points are not automatic, you must fix it.

 

Not to excuse those guys or anything because they were terrible yesterday, but how many of you can do something well but would probably buckle in front of 100,000 people? It's no excuse, but they are freshmen that have never had that many people watching them like that...

 

Chris Jackson can tackle. That's comforting.

I agree... the field goal kicking was horrible. Did Clayton not handle the snap correctly on that first extra point? I couldn't see.

I think it's all mental for Gaudet and Jackson. They both appear to be very talented. I was just hoping they would work out the menatl errors before SEC play starts. Oh well.

 

If we have poor snaps, we can't be depended upon to have good kicks...

We also lost Blain Bech, our holder for the last two years...that's a loss of comfort and continuity back there. It means more than you think.

Freshmen are freshmen, and kickers are kickers, but freshmen kickers are a precious commodity. Not often do you see consistent quality freshmen kickers. I can remember-LITERALLY-at this time in Corbello's frosh season that people were wondering about his merits and kicking talent.

LSU would not have them in the game if they were not talented. We're not going to put deficient talent on the field. The situation thusfar can probably thusfar be summed up that they're 18 year olds and they're still getting their focus together mentally.

Problems with the snap, seeing the holder fumble a hold, this all weighs on their mind. They have to learn to block it all out, as well as the people in the stands, the score, the situation, and the distance...

It takes time-and some never do-to develop a mentality that's best suited to be a successful kicker...

Just my $0.02

 

The loss of Blain Bech does hurt. Any word on when he'll be back, if ever?

Michael Clayton was holding at first last night, and obviously that wasn't working, so Mauck came in and held on the PAT's in the second half. It got better with Mauck, so maybe he'll be the holder from now on.

It really needs to be fixed. I cannot stress that enough, with Georgia coming up.