Urgent Note to UConn Football - Recruit Kickers Next Year
Urgent Note to UConn Football - Recruit Kickers Next Year
When this year’s installment of UConn football ends, the Huskies need to place a classified ad in every newspaper around the country. It should be something like this:
HELP WANTED
- Place Kicker needed urgently
- Extra Points a must
- Field Goal accuracy a must
- Have the ability to make at least a 40-yard field goal
- Thick enough skin to take the abuse of UConn’s fan base
- Survive longer than a few games
Seriously, UConn has not had a good place kicker since the second Clinton administration, when the Huskies were still a Division I-AA football team and Memorial Stadium was still in use. Matt Nuzie has only managed to have one good year and still cannot make extra points, an absolute must for a team that has a hard enough time scoring to begin with. The last thing this team can afford is to give points back to teams like West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Louisville. Even games against teams like Cincinnati become an adventure when the kicker is unreliable. Granted, Nuzie has had enormous pressure on him since he arrived on campus. As a Division-I kicker, however, he needs to be able to make the kicks. The Greg Vicidomino Experience was an utter bust Saturday, as he missed all three of his field goal attempts against Army in UConn’s 21-7 victory.
While the Huskies were able to pull away from the Black Knights, it could have been more like a blowout if UConn’s kicker was even slightly accurate. I was at the Wake Forest game earlier this year, and the Huskies had just scored against the Demon Deacons to cut their lead to 14-13. The crowd was in a frenzy and UConn was hitting on all cylinders.
It is easy to guess what happened next. Nuzie blew the extra point. A one point deficit may not seem like such a big deal, but it does deflate momentum. Instead of being tied, the team is down a point. When the Deacs made a field goal later in the game, the score was 17-13. Nuzie also missed a field goal in that game. The Huskies did eventually lose 24-13, but it is a much bigger psychological difference to be down three at 17-14 than down four at 17-13 than people think. Being down four means that the team must take chances in order to get a touchdown instead of setting up for a tying field goal.
The bottom line is that the Huskies have to stop worrying about getting the best athletes and go out and recruit someone to put the pigskin through the uprights because they will not win close games with the kickers that they have now. At the rate the kicking game is going, the Huskies might as well try to find some eligibility for Boston College great Doug Flutie and have him drop kick the ball between those two yellow pulls as he did as a member of the New England Patriots. The situation for UConn’s kicking game may be that bleak.
Kevin D. Roberts
2006 Graduate - University of Connecticut - B.A. Journalism/Political Science
Torrington, CT 06790
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