Notre Dame lost 31-28 to No. 24 Louisville, but they had a chance to tie it up on a late 26-yard field goal. Normally this would be a walk in the park for senior kicker Kyle Brindza, but he pushed the kick wide right.
Notre Dame loses to Louisville, second straight loss due to bad holds on field goals
Typically reliable Notre Dame kicker Kyle Brindza has missed several crucial kicks in the past two games, with some of the blame falling on bad holds by Malik Zaire.
(GIFs via NBC.)
All eyes turned to the hold of backup QB Malik Zaire, who needed to reposition the ball and didn’t get the laces all the way out. Brindza was seen yelling at the freshman on the sidelines in earshot of Brian Kelly:
The holder situation has been a saga. At first, the Fighting Irish were using Hunter Smith, a backup long snapper, but he dropped the ball on three kicks, so Kelly moved on to Zaire.
Zaire’s first game was last week against Northwestern. He bobbled the ball on one extra point, which was blocked and returned for a two-point conversion by the Wildcats. And Brindza missed both of his field goal attempts, one in overtime, both coming with questionable holds by Zaire.
Normally the holds wouldn’t receive such tight scrutiny, but Brindza’s reputation has been stellar. And of course, Notre Dame did a *lot* of things wrong in these games to lose besides holding the field goals, but it’s been weird to see such a simple task go awry late in two straight games.
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