Why I hate field goal tries

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Great Plains Gopher

Great Plains Gopher

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LSU: 4th and 6, Alabama side of the field, 2 minutes left; their QB has a hot hand - but they don't go for the six and first down and the win. Also, field goal kickers seem not as good these days as they were 20, 30 years ago. I hate field goal tries.
 

40 seconds off the clock or a chance to take it all the way down. Risky call
 

In this day of position specialty I find it hard to believe that Minnesota can't come up with a consistent kicker. There never used to be kicker camps and kicker coaches years ago. I thought the kickers were more accurate/consistent back then. I remember Gopher kickers who couldn't even consistently make extra points.

Miles maybe should have gone for it on that last play. I think that was a 47 yarder or longer. However, he should have kicked field goals on some of the closer ones. That would have been the game for them.
 

MNSpaniel said:
In this day of position specialty I find it hard to believe that Minnesota can't come up with a consistent kicker. There never used to be kicker camps and kicker coaches years ago. I thought the kickers were more accurate/consistent back then. I remember Gopher kickers who couldn't even consistently make extra points.

Miles maybe should have gone for it on that last play. I think that was a 47 yarder or longer. However, he should have kicked field goals on some of the closer ones. That would have been the game for them.
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True, some times you do have to go for the field goal (LSU earlier, Gophers on the fake kick play). But at the end of the game with everything at stake, go for the first down. Kickers (and punters) do seem weaker today - don't know why.
 

Kicking has gotten better over the years. Almost all of the FG kicking records (distance and accuracy) are in the last few years.

As far as LSU kicking a FG, to me, was a no-brainer. It didn't work, but if they had made the FG it made it so Alabama (a team that hadn't been moving the ball) needed a TD rather a FG. If LSU goes for it, gets stopped, Bama wouldn't have had to go very far to get a game tying FG.

Mathematically, their best chance to win was kicking the FG in that instance. It didn't work, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right call.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
Kicking has gotten better over the years. Almost all of the FG kicking records (distance and accuracy) are in the last few years.

As far as LSU kicking a FG, to me, was a no-brainer. It didn't work, but if they had made the FG it made it so Alabama (a team that hadn't been moving the ball) needed a TD rather a FG. If LSU goes for it, gets stopped, Bama wouldn't have had to go very far to get a game tying FG.

Mathematically, their best chance to win was kicking the FG in that instance. It didn't work, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right call.
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Agreed.
 

However, why can't MN find a steady kicker. We haven't had one we could truly be confident in since the kicker from RCC. Rhys Lloyd is the name I was trying to come up with.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
LSU: 4th and 6, Alabama side of the field, 2 minutes left; their QB has a hot hand - but they don't go for the six and first down and the win. Also, field goal kickers seem not as good these days as they were 20, 30 years ago. I hate field goal tries.
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Putting Les Miles' game decisions aside, good kickers are an absolute necessity in CFB (particularly in the SEC). Top level teams in the SEC, typically have very, very good kickers. When you are up against some of those defenses, every point counts. At the end of the year, I would challenge you to compare W-L with FG's made by those teams.

Stewart Mandel discusses importance of kickers despite perception in this article
 

MNSpaniel said:
However, why can't MN find a steady kicker. We haven't had one we could truly be confident in since the kicker from RCC. Rhys Lloyd is the name I was trying to come up with.
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For whatever reason, we remember Lloyd as being better than he really was. He was actually a pretty average kicker and a below average punter. Might have something to do with the Wisconsin kick?

As for the statement that field goal kickers don't seem to be as good now days, I compared kickers from this year to 2000. Field goal success is at 73.5% this year compared to 69.5% in 2000. Teams also attempt 1.63 field goals per game compared to 1.49 in 2000. I would say the difference in field goal percentage might have something to do with more turf fields now days. Because of that, I would say they're pretty much the same.

I tried to look back further, but this is what the stats for 1990 look like on ncaa.org: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/archive/fbs/1990ind.pdf
Seriously, they can't have an intern enter that into a database or something?
 



MNSpaniel said:
However, why can't MN find a steady kicker. We haven't had one we could truly be confident in since the kicker from RCC. Rhys Lloyd is the name I was trying to come up with.
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Wish I did know the answer. They (Coach Phelps and Coach Zebrowksi) have recruited kickers Jake Elliott (Western Springs, Illinois) and Josh Brebant (Akron, OH). No offers though.
 

GophersInIowa said:
For whatever reason, we remember Lloyd as being better than he really was. He was actually a pretty average kicker and a below average punter. Might have something to do with the Wisconsin kick?

As for the statement that field goal kickers don't seem to be as good now days, I compared kickers from this year to 2000. Field goal success is at 73.5% this year compared to 69.5% in 2000. Teams also attempt 1.63 field goals per game compared to 1.49 in 2000. I would say the difference in field goal percentage might have something to do with more turf fields now days. Because of that, I would say they're pretty much the same.

I tried to look back further, but this is what the stats for 1990 look like on ncaa.org: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/archive/fbs/1990ind.pdf
Seriously, they can't have an intern enter that into a database or something?
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Thanks for putting that up. Ironically, the 1990 stats have 6 SEC kickers in the Top 20 for FG's. Reading through those names on those stat sheets are great.
 

Not disputing you but if not Lloyd ... who has been the Gophers top kickers in the last 20 to 25 years? Lloyd wasn't with us that many years because he was a Juco. Poor kicking has cost us a lot of games over the years.
 

MNSpaniel said:
Not disputing you but if not Lloyd ... who has been the Gophers top kickers in the last 20 to 25 years? Lloyd wasn't with us that many years because he was a Juco. Poor kicking has cost us a lot of games over the years.
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Chip Lohmiller is still regarded as the all-time best. in the last 20 years or so Dan Nystrom was probably the most consistent kicker we had.

Kickers are a lot like QB's there is a general lack of really good ones out there. You look at the NFL and it is the same guys year after year after year, very few new kickers break in each year. From a recruiting standpoint Kicker is one of the toughest positions to evaluate because all you can really gauge is how strong a kids leg is, tough to predict if they will be able to handle the speed and pressure of kicking in college. Coaches are hesitant to give scholarships to kickers for that reason, would much rather have them walk on and give them the scholy once they prove they can get it done.
 



GophersInIowa said:
For whatever reason, we remember Lloyd as being better than he really was. He was actually a pretty average kicker and a below average punter. Might have something to do with the Wisconsin kick?

This is 100% true-although I'd take him right now!
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tikited said:
GophersInIowa said:
For whatever reason, we remember Lloyd as being better than he really was. He was actually a pretty average kicker and a below average punter. Might have something to do with the Wisconsin kick?

This is 100% true-although I'd take him right now!
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Lloyd did play 4 or 5 years in the NFL as a kick-off specialist so he must have been ok.
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Winnipegopher said:
tikited said:
Lloyd did play 4 or 5 years in the NFL as a kick-off specialist so he must have been ok.
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His stat's were only o.k. in college. Way better than what we've seen the last few years, but still not a record breaker by any means. Kind of like my memory of Jim Gallery: I remember him as being great, but his stat's don't reflect that.
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Winnipegopher said:
Lloyd did play 4 or 5 years in the NFL as a kick-off specialist so he must have been ok.
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I guess I meant as a field goal kicker. He missed 6 extra points in two years, including 4 as a senior. In comparison, Dan Nystrom missed 4 total in 4 seasons. Nystrom had one of the best years a college kicker will ever have in 2002. He was 20-21 for field goals and was a perfect 42-42 on extra points.

I'm not trying to rip on Lloyd or anything. He was a solid player for us.
 

Actually kicking is pretty amazing

During that time the hash marks have adjusted, the field goal T has been left to HS.

That kicking has been as good as it is is pretty amazing.


Great Plains Gopher said:
LSU: 4th and 6, Alabama side of the field, 2 minutes left; their QB has a hot hand - but they don't go for the six and first down and the win. Also, field goal kickers seem not as good these days as they were 20, 30 years ago. I hate field goal tries.
Click to expand...
 

We've had some lousy kickers, but it doesn't strike me that we've been horrible in the kicking game.

Joel Monroe was decent (maybe I'm mistaken). He is a career 75.9% on FGs (22/29) and he only missed 2 EP (80/82).
Dan Nystrom had a good career for us. He had a big leg, so his FG % wasn't always great. (4 years)
Rhys Lloyd was a fan favorite (especially after the WI kick).

Don't get me wrong, we've had some clunkers as well, but I don't think it's been as god awful as others. Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't really looked into the numbers.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
We've had some lousy kickers, but it doesn't strike me that we've been horrible in the kicking game.

Joel Monroe was decent (maybe I'm mistaken). He is a career 75.9% on FGs (22/29) and he only missed 2 EP (80/82).
Dan Nystrom had a good career for us. He had a big leg, so his FG % wasn't always great. (4 years)
Rhys Lloyd was a fan favorite (especially after the WI kick).

Don't get me wrong, we've had some clunkers as well, but I don't think it's been as god awful as others. Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't really looked into the numbers.
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Since 2000, Gopher kickers have made 70.2 of field goals which is right around average. Of all the kickers in that time frame, Monroe had the best percentage at 75.9%, Giannini the worst at 60% (just 88% on extra points too).
 

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