Kicking Around History
When I was a kid going to games at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati (I was fortunate enough to see The Big Red Machine), I watched batting practice in total amazement. How can George Foster hit a baseball that far? That one just landed in the red seats. A red seat homer at Riverfront. Those are the hits we still remember.
I marvel when I see a guy hit a golf ball 300 yards with regularity. There may have been two occasions when I hit a golf ball that far. If I did, I assure you there was a strong wind behind me and the ball was travelling downhill.
Kicking a football over a goal post from 60 yards away? That is something I can talk to you about. Many years ago, I did that often. When I think about how much pop my leg had in it forty years ago, that is one of the only times I get truly wistful about father time’s assault. The feel of a ball sailing from your foot over a goal post 60 or 70 yards away is a rush.
I cannot, however, for the life of me, comprehend doing that in front of a stadium full of people when my 60 yard kick means my team goes ahead in a 13-13 tie to make the score 16-13 with 19 seconds to go. That is just too much for this old kicker to take. We’re not finished. The other team gets the ball with 19 seconds left. They run a pass play from their own 25 that is caught on the opponent’s 42. The clock is running and with 5 seconds left that team throws an incompletion and leaves 2 seconds on the clock for their kicker to attempt another 60 yard field goal to tie the game at 16. There’s the snap. The kick is on the way….and it’s good! “Unbelievable!” In this case I quote Indiana University Football radio play by play man Don Fischer. I could hear Don yell “Unbelievable!” behind the glass door that walls off the radio booth on the north side of the press box in Memorial Stadium Level 5.
Both of these kicks, one by a Minnesota Golden Gopher, Luke Drzewiecki, and one by an Indiana Hoosier, Paddy McAteer, rewrote the Memorial Stadium record for longest field goal ever recorded and this was the first time in college football history each team kicked a 60-yard field goal in one game. I sat in the press box in Bloomington last week and when it was all over, the TD pass on the first play of OT for Indiana, the sack of the Gopher QB on 4th and goal to end it giving Indiana a 23-16 OT win, I just sat there thinking about those two kicks we just saw.
I was smart enough to take this picture when it was over. This was the craziest finish I have ever seen.
In the first half, this old special teams coach was fuming. In the years I coached high school football, our special teams never looked as sorry as Indiana’s did in the first half of this ballgame.
On two occasions in the first half, the Indiana Hoosiers were forced to punt from their own 12-yard line. The first one went 15 yards. The second one was 27 yards. Billy Powell was nearly half the age of the Indiana punter (30) when he was swinging his leg for us. Billy Powell never farted like Billy Gowers did Saturday for the Hoosiers.
The special team gaffes kept coming. All in the first half. Punt returner and gifted wide receiver Charlie B. from Nashville Tennessee called a fair catch of a Minnesota punt on the Indiana three-yard line. I nearly fell out of my chair.
Throw in two bad field goal attempts by Indiana, one 52 yards and one 31 yards, and you had seemingly more special team mistakes in one half than you saw in the first 37 games of the Coach Cignetti Era in Bloomington.
The good news for Hoosier fans is that this aspect of their game can only get better moving forward. We’ll never see such ineptness of special team play in a game that is won in large part thanks to a 60-yard field goal. And I hope the dingleberries who booed the Hoosiers last Saturday drink from a can with a yellowjacket in it next tailgate.
When the Minnesota kicker hit his 60-yarder, I was still incensed at the way Indiana had so badly displayed their special team ineptness in the first quarter. Like millions of others, I thought that was the game. After all, there were only 19 seconds left.
On college football Saturdays, I often go back and forth with a cousin of mine in Mississippi. He is a good Ole Miss Rebel. A tip of the cap to Lewis Grizzard. He described himself as “A good Georgia Bulldog.” I sent my cousin a picture in a text message after the Minnesota kicker nailed his 60-yarder and I thought the game was over.
To my delight, the Hoosiers proved me wrong. I’m good with that. After all, I got to see two guys kick history around.