The laces must have been out.
I’m Alexis Serna, Oregon State’s pariah. A few weeks ago I missed three extra points on national television, helping my team fail in its bid to upset then-No. 3 LSU.
Can’t blame these on Dan Marino.
I’m Jason Wilhoit, Tennessee’s resurrected hero. Saturday night I erred on an extra point with just a few minutes left, nearly costing my team the game. Fortunately, I nailed an absurdly more difficult 50-yard field goal to win in the waning moments.
But Ray Finkle never missed an extra point, now did he?
I’m Ryan Gaudet. I kick for LSU, and early in Saturday’s game against Auburn I choked on a point-after attempt. It came back to haunt us as our 11-game win streak was snapped when the Tigers won 10-9.
If you are a kicker on a football team, from the high school level on up, the only time you should ever miss an extra point is if you’re playing in a hurricane or a nor’easter. An extra point shouldn’t be blocked, and an extra point should never be missed wide right or left. Ever.
You’re a kicker. If you miss the occasional field goal, or even a handful of field goals, that’s certainly than acceptable. There’s a lot of pressure to hit those. There’s a considerable degree of difficulty if you take into account the distance of the kick, wind, field conditions, the abilities of your snapper and holder, your offensive line, the adeptness of the opposing team’s special teams unit, and, if you’re playing away from home, adjusting to a different and hostile atmosphere.
It’s regrettable when a field goal is missed—excruciating perhaps—particularly when the kick decides the outcome of a road game against a school that you’d absolutely love to pulverize. But it is not the end of the world as it is too often made out to be.
But missing an extra point? That’s the equivalent of missing a one inch putt, of whiffing on an easy overhead, of a 7-footer rim-jamming a dunk, of an archer aiming for a target a body’s length away and shooting himself in the foot instead.
Yet for some reason, a bevy of kickers seem to have digressed into the depths of errant PATs this season, with at least two misfiring on national television, much to their chagrin and the embarrassment of the programs they represent.
But perhaps I’m being too harsh. Nate Kaeding, Iowa’s All-World kicker who was drafted in the third round of the NFL Draft last year, missed three extra points in his illustrious college career. So even the best of the best can shank one now and then, or have a kick blocked (which is the more likely cause of Kaeding’s imperfection). But should that make it acceptable?
If the offensive line allows a surge sufficient enough for the defense to block the extra point, then the kicker is not culpable. Otherwise, a missed point after try is inexcusable. Make your kick. It’s all you need to practice. You need not memorize a playbook thicker than Paradise Lost to know how to kick a ball from a certain hash mark with a certain amount of wind. You don’t have to squat 500 pounds to be able to knock a football relatively straight. All you have to do is block out the fans, block out the pressure, and do your thing.
Granted, a missed extra point isn’t the end of the world either. It’s clearly more important to have a quarterback who can pass and a running back who can hold onto the ball than it is to have a kicker who can kick. But the responsibilities a kicker must perfect are so much simpler, regardless of how difficult they may be to master—a kicker owes it to his team to be extremely consistent.
Every little bit counts, and if a kicker can’t hold up his end of the bargain for his football team, then he ought to get the boot.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.