Normally kickoffs are kicked off of a tee, and that’s no secret. But when mother nature won’t cooperate, a teammate is allowed to hold for the kicker so we can get on with the game. That happened in the Bahamas Bowl. Eventually.
Old Dominion’s kickoff holder is scared of getting his hand kicked off
I feel ya, man.
I absolutely empathize with running back Nick Ferrari-Smith here. If you’ve played around in the backyard with friends, you know the one person in the group who thinks they can kick a field goal. I mean, how hard could it be right?
You can just hear kicker Brad Davis saying “don’t worry bro, I won’t kick your hand. It’s all good.” But even if Davis has practiced this hundreds of times (which he has, I’d assume) his foot is still traveling at Ferrari-Smith’s hand incredibly quickly.
If the kicker runs up to the ball from 10 yards away before booting it, as with a typical kickoff, he’ll have a speed (v) of about 15 feet per second. This corresponds to a launch speed of 126 feet per second, or 93 miles per hour. The field-goal launch speed values will be somewhere in between those for punts and for kickoffs, because the approach distance is less than that for a kickoff.
Ferrari-Smith has the requisite amount of precaution here. Trust is earned, not given.
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