Kickers need to be confident. Heck, they need to be cocky. Joe Mansour definitely has confidence… Heck, Joe is cocky too. I talk about Joe Mansour because of last weekend’s Louisville victory.
The game could have a lot less stressful if 4 points was added on the scoreboard. Ryan Tydlacka missed two big kicks, one in the opening moments of the game and the other in one of the biggest moments of the game. Both kicks were basically an extra point, but both kicks were off the mark. Missing field goals and extra points are like missing free throws, it will come back to cost you more often than not. As you know, Kentucky football can’t afford to leave points on the field, and when the SEC rolls around it is essential to score every chance they can get. I know it has been one game, but it is time for the freshman to get his chance.
Joe Mansour is a highly touted kicker coming out of high school. Heck, he has already won a national award. Joe won the National Kickoff Specialist of the Week for booming several kicks for touchbacks vs. Louisville. That is a weapon in itself. I think we also need to take advantage of his knack for drilling fields goals as well. I found this article about Joe from the Atlanta Journal Constitution which talks about Joe’s confident leg.
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Greg Nord, Kentucky’s special teams coach, declared one day in summer camp that it was time to test the range of his field goal kickers.
“Where should I spot the ball,” Nord asked each kicker.
They all pointed to a spot at a modest distance, except for Joe Mansour. When Nord got to ask Mansour, the freshman from LaGrange said, “Wherever you want. I’ll make it.”
“You got to like that,” Nord said. “He’s got some savvy, some confidence. Whether he can do it in a game in front of 90,000, we’ll see.”
The distance that day eventually got back to 55 yards.
“Yeah, I made it,” Mansour said. “The other day I won a scrimmage with a 50-yarder. That was with the whole team and it meant a lot more than that 55-yarder with just the coach.”
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It didn’t stop there. Joe went a little bit farther with his self confidence.
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Just spot the ball, Mansour seems to say. He is not afraid to thump it from any distance. He remembers spotting a ball the first day of practice for a 45-yarder and one of the quarterbacks, Morgan Newton, started ribbing him.
“You don’t have a strong enough leg,” Newton said.
“Strong enough leg? Watch,” said Mansour. “I moved the ball back to the 65-yard mark. They had been running patterns with receivers and they stopped practice and they all gathered around.”
“You make this you should be in the NFL,” one veteran said. They were still trash talking as the ball left Mansour’s foot.
“After I made it, everybody was jumping up and down cheering, it was pretty neat,” Mansour said.
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[URL=”http://www.ajc.com/sports/mansour-getting-a-kick-601138.html”]Read Entire Article[/URL]
Could this be the week we see Joe kicking? That is Joker’s decision. I think the next weeks would be a great time to test the kid out and give him a shot.
Who do you think should be the kicker vs. Western Kentucky?
Check out some of Joe’s kicks below.
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