Welcome to Gramatica Errors, SB Nation’s weekly kicking and punting column. Apologies for the time off — we had to spend the holidays retying our laces and getting our toes pointed in the right direction. We’re back, though, and as always, we will do our best to avoid any and all foot puns. Now let’s kick things off ...
Rodrigo Blankenship is the college football hero we need
Gramatica Errors Playoff Edition: A good old fashioned toe-down.
Photo by David John Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Rodrigo Blankenship is the college football hero we need
Georgia-Oklahoma was one of the most thrilling college football games played in recent memory, but we here in the Kick Clique had trouble following the game because we were too busy falling in love. Yep, we had a full-on case of a plantar fan-sciitis for the bespectacled, beautiful vision that was Georgia kicker Rodrigo Blankenship.
Blankenship nailed a 55-yard field goal as time expired in the first half of the Rose Bowl, an insane kick given the circumstances and pressure, and a haughty double middle finger to every dingus who makes “college kicker” jokes on Twitter.
Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
That kick would prove vital in a game that was tied at the end of regulation, one that Georgia would go on to win in overtime to advance to the national championship game. What was wild about the kick was that, according to Georgia special teams coach Shane Beamer (of course the Georgia special team coach is named Shane Beamer), 55 yards was outside the range they had discussed before the game.
Via the Macon Telegraph:
“It was a huge kick by Rod,” Beamer said. “It was a little bit out of his range with what we had talked about going into the game where his range was.”
What’s wilder about the kick was that, at one point this past fall, it looked like Blankenship wouldn’t be on the team. After walking on, Blankenship was ready to transfer because coach Kirby Smart hadn’t offered him a scholarship and another kicker transferred in. He stayed on though, won the starting job, rocked some dope-ass spectacles, and finally got his scholarship in September. Yeah, we had one of the better college football games ever played this weekend, sure. But mostly, we had Rodrigo.
The kicker men weren’t goats, and thus they were heroes
To stay on the Georgia-Oklahoma game for another moment, let me just say that it was delightful that we had a thrilling college football game end without a kicker being made a goat.
Yes, Oklahoma’s Austin Seibert had his kick blocked in overtime, but it’s not his fault the line let a monstrous Georgia player break through, and the UGA touchdown on the next possession guaranteed it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. That kick looked good before it was blocked, just like every other one of Seibert’s kick looked good on the day. He hit a 38-yarder, nailed all six extra points, and punted too, including a 57-yard bomb.
Photo by John Cordes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
As I’ve written about before, most of these kids are getting absolutely no technical coaching outside of a few camps in the summer, especially at the college level. (They don’t even get it in the NFL, as our own Adam Stites reported.) They don’t get much coaching because staff sizes are limited and most coaches don’t know shit about kicking, so the kickers are more or less left to figure this stuff out for themselves. (Blankenship, for what it’s worth, is one of the few who does — he’s coached by former UGA All-American kicker Kevin Butler.)
That’s all fine, I guess, but what pisses me off is that when the game is on the line, and a 19-year-old kid can’t kick an oblong object through uprights 47 yards away in the wind, everyone makes the aforementioned “college kickers” joke and the coach — who again, most likely has done jack shit to help this kid succeed at his job — can just shake his head and shrug, like what could I have done.
I’m getting worked up now, but I’ve grown to understand and love deeply the kickers of the world in the course of writing this silly column, and it was wonderful to see both Blankenship and Seibert — both of whom should have shots to kick in the NFL — perform so well in a game under an amount of pressure I don’t even want to think about. TOE BOYZ FOR LIFE.
Blair Walsh said goodbye the only way he knew how
I know it’s messed up for me to follow that whole diatribe by pointing out a missed kick, but I truly loved that Blair Walsh signed off on his time with the Seahawks this weekend with one final miss, a nice “fuck you” to every Seahawks fan who has booed him this season (and there have been more than a few).
When asked about the kick after game, Walsh responded:
“Simply, it just didn’t go the direction that I wanted it to off my foot,” he said. “I wanted to put it to the right third and let it come back in. That’s kind of what my other one did. It didn’t do what I wanted it to.”
Fuck that. You don’t owe them anything, Blair. The Seahawks stunk because their offensive line was trash and everyone on defense got hurt. They want to make you the scapegoat, they can suck an egg. Get out of that rainy state and never look back. I wish he had answered the question with “The kick missed, but what’s more important here is that I find Bainbridge Island trite, Starbucks sucks, and I’m glad the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City. Go toss some fish, squares,” then walked out of the locker room. No one can blame Blair Walsh for ANYTHING.
Except like everyone in the state of Minnesota. They can blame him for something.
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