Miami ? It’s always better to peek inside a kicker’s head than to check the weather forecast when trying to determine kicking conditions.
Weather.com’s prediction for Thursday night’s Orange Bowl that pits underdog Kansas University against Virginia Tech, by the way, calls for a low of 59 degrees and winds of 11 mph out of the northeast.
The more interesting forecast required sticking a thermometer between Kansas senior kicker Scott Webb’s ears during a sit-down interview.
Last seen in action, Webb missed second-quarter field-goal attempts of 33 and 45 yards in a 36-28 loss to Missouri in Arrowhead Stadium. He didn’t avoid discussing the game, didn’t make excuses and didn’t give the impression he had spent a great deal of time dwelling on the misses, all good signs.
“I’ll put all the blame on myself,” Webb said. “I’m fine with that. I’m past it. It’s over with, and I can’t do anything about it now.”
How long did it take him to bury it?
“Next day,” he said. “What are you going to do about it? Can’t go back in time, just have to get over it. I know I didn’t help my team out. That’s what I feel bad about. They’re all working so hard, and I just want to go out there and help them out. I didn’t do that, but it’s over with. I’m getting ready to play Virginia Tech, not Missouri.”
How does a kicker prepare for a game, anyway?
“Kicking, but you can’t kick too much or you’ll wear your leg out,” Webb said. “You don’t want to kick more than 30 in a day. It’s kind of like a pitching arm, you only have so many pitches before stuff starts wearing out and injuries happen, and it does happen. You can really wear your leg out. I’ve done it before where you kick too much and you can definitely feel it the next day. It will break down the muscles, and you won’t have the same pop on the ball.”
While the rest of the team is hitting each other during practice, the punters and kickers are off on a separate field, refining their skills and fighting off boredom, sometimes by playing a kicking version of the popular basketball H-O-R-S-E game.
“Kicking left-footed is a good one,” Webb said. “Putting the ball four or five yards from the crossbar so you have to get the ball up really quickly. Spinning the ball and trying to kick it before it stops spinning. It’s one of my personal favorites. The drop kick. I’m pretty good at that one. I think my personal best is 55 yards at that one. Straight-on kicks come up in H-O-R-S-E sometimes. I’ve never been too good at it. It hurts.”
So does missing a pair of field goals in a big game, but Webb said one long, quiet bus ride from Arrowhead Stadium was all he needed to flush those feelings.
Webb made 11 of 12 field-goal attempts in the season’s first seven games and six of 12 since. He doesn’t clutter his mind with such numbers, and when a drive is taking place he also keeps figures out of his head. While spectators calculate where the team needs to advance to get into field-goal range, Webb said he does not.
“I definitely don’t do that,” Webb said. “Personally, I think that’s a bad thing to do, thinking about the kick. You want to do the same thing every time. You want to kick the ball the same distance, the same strength. So I try not to think about the yardage at all.”
When it comes to kickers thinking, less is more.
