re: Grade the starters through 5 games

quote:

---

I'm just not a fan of kickers.

---

I can respect that...especially considering the non-proportional impact a kicker can have on a game. I remember a reporter, way back in the day, mention how he hated kickers...to paraphrase he said he hated when a prima donna kicker marched out late in a game and stole credit for the victory from the "real men" who had been busting their butts for 60 minutes. While this rings true, kickers also seem to get a non-proportional share of the blame when they fail...

A kicker is only as good as his last game (or last memorable game any way). Van Tiffin is the most beloved kicker in Alabama history...everyone remembers "The Kick" back in the '85 Iron Bowl...and it's one of my favorite Bama memories. However few remember that his FG% that year was not stellar (he was 17-26) and this was in the era where the goal posts were wider and you could still kick FGs off of a tee. He also missed several kicks that year that could've conceivably kept Bama out of the SEC/National championship picture. He missed a 52-yarder against Penn State in a game we lost 19-17...and he was 0 for 2 in FGs in a tie game (14-14) against LSU. He also missed a 61-yarder as time expired in a 16-14 loss to Tennessee, but you can't reasonably expect to convert that one. In a season where we finished 9-2-1, a couple of makeable FGs against Penn State & LSU could've easily put us at 11-1 and in contention for a championship. But with the dramatics of "The Kick", the previous games were forgotten (and, I could argue, justifiably so)...

Fast forward to last year...before the Iron Bowl, Cade Foster had made 11 of 12 FGs...a good reckoning by any standard...after his 3 misses against Auburn, all of that was forgotten. Several fans questioned why Foster was the starting kicker because "he sucked" (choosing to ignore that he was 11-12 beforehand). Now all that Cade's remembered for is his Iron Bowl performance...