By Coach Stoney

At any level of football, if there is a close game you can bet that there was at least one play in the kicking game that helped to determine the outcome.  If you look at Saturday’s UK/Florida you could make the argument that the biggest four plays in the game were as follows:

#4-Lonas Sieber’s missed Field Goal on UK’s 2nd possession of the game

If Seiber makes this kick then UK answers a Florida 10 play drive to tie the game at 7-7.  UK could have went back up by three points and kept the home crowd excited during the first part of the game.  Following the miss, Florida scored on 66 yard pass play to go up 14-7.  UK never got closer than 4 points the rest of the way.  Seiber did, however, redeem himself with a 27 yard field goal in the 2nd quarter.

#3-Shanked Punt at start of 3rd quarter

UK punter Tim Masthay has been dead on this season.  Unfortunately, he shanked a punt on UK’s first possession of the 2nd half that gave Florida the football at the UK 46 yard line.  With UF leading 21-10 they were able to score in 8 plays to blow the game open.  And, more importantly, it took the sellout crowd out of the game.

#2-UK’s onsides kick attempt

Now, a scenario that could have gotten the crowd completely back in the game.  After scoring on a 28 pass from Andre Woodson to Jacob Tamme there was no doubt that UK had Florida fooled when they followed that by attempting an onsides kick at the 8:09 mark of the 3rd quarter.  Unfortunately, for UK the ball was touched barely before going the required 10 yards.  If UK had been able to convert that onsides attempt it could have changed the course of the game as they were down 28-17, at that point.  I feel that it was a great call by Rich Brooks as he definitely had the Gators fooled.  Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out.

#1-Florida’s Kickoff Return at end of 1st half

With 2:38 left in the first half UK scored on a field goal to cut Florida’s lead to 14-10.  They could go into the locker room down only four points if their defense did not allow Florida to score.  The UK defense did not get much help from their kickoff coverage as Florida’s Brandon James ran the ensuing kickoff back 63 yards before Trevard Lindley would make the stop.  This set Florida up in great field position where they would score to go up 21-10 with only 14 seconds left in the half.

If you change the outcome of any one of these four plays to give UK the advantage then the outcome of the game could have been different.  A total of 17 Florida points came off of drives where the Gators started in UK territory (all due to the outcome of plays 1, 2, and 3 above).  Take just 7 of those points away and UK’s TD pass on the last play of the game sets up an extra point for the tie and a possible overtime for SEC East supremacy.  Or, would it have set up a decision where Rich Brooks would have UK going for a two-point conversion, the win, the SEC East lead,  the biggest back to back wins in UK history, and a top 3 BCS ranking all in one play?  Now, that would have been real fun…………………….

And, that, my friends, is the difference of the kicking game!!!