FB: Liberty League

[Senor RedTackle]

what an excruciating roller coaster of emotions to be a Bills fan. The losses to Denver and Dallas had most of us ready to thrown in the towel. Then Edwards help right the ship and restore some pride to the season, looking like a seasoned guy and not a rookie. Then he goes down and Losman comes in and leads the team to a couple of victories and now everyone is back with a glimmer of hope.

Then GUESS WHAT?? The vintage Losman shows up with an absolutely pitiful interception that leads to a quick score by the Pats.  Unbelievable...what a fraud

[pg04]

As a bills fan, PG thinks he'll go sob quietly in a corner. 

[Senor RedTackle]

what an excruciating roller coaster of emotions to be a Bills fan. The losses to Denver and Dallas had most of us ready to thrown in the towel. Then Edwards help right the ship and restore some pride to the season, looking like a seasoned guy and not a rookie. Then he goes down and Losman comes in and leads the team to a couple of victories and now everyone is back with a glimmer of hope.

Then GUESS WHAT?? The vintage Losman shows up with an absolutely pitiful interception that leads to a quick score by the Pats.  Unbelievable...what a fraud

and THEN the ridiculous fumble turns into a broken 1st down ...followed by a long TD toss. WTF

[Doid23]

ries.....in Coach King's 18 (or whatever)year tenure, RPI has won more games then they did in about 50 or so years. RPI has had 4 NCAA berths and numerous ECAC wins. Players graduate and come back to the games. Is RT mad RPI didn't kick it?...hell yeah, along with the majority of the fans. But they're the coaches and they must've had a reason to do what they did....

True that.  From personal experience, RPI Football used to be a joke, The Shoes was a non-event.  Now their relevant, and have been for some time and will be for the forseeable future. Trust me, I'm no fan of RPI, but what King has done for RPI from the perspective of their football history has been nothing less than remarkable. And there's no way a coach of his caliber doesn't realize that it would be great to get a FG in that situation, but he obviously had no faith in his kicker, from ANY distance.

[zachattack22]

ZA hasn't posted very much this year, but he did follow the LL very closely. ZA wouldn't call it a bad year for the LL, but it was apparent to ZA that it was a bit of an "off" year for the LL.  ZA flew cross country to see the Union/RPI game and was not overly impressed with either team, but the game was a good one. Being loyal to the LL. ZA was hoping RPI would win in the first round, regardless of the Union/RPI rivalry.

ZA's not sure about Union's future next year, but hopes for the best.  Mulhenburg will be good again next year and for some reason, Union, no matter what personel they have on defense, cannot seem to play well against an option offense, so even an "off" Springfield Team will put a lot of points on the board as they did this year.

ZA realizes those games are non-liberty league games, but it's still a tough way to start off the season IF you lose those first two games.

Congrats to RPI....As far as coaching decisions go, ZA has always stated that overall, RPI makes the best adjustments at halftime and has proven that many times over the last several years, coming back from deficits and winning games that they were losing in the first half.  To do that consistently, means the coaching staff makes very good decisions and adjustments.

Hope to see more games next year....It's been great having the video feed at some of the games. Tough watching on a laptop, but it's the next best thing!!!

[Senor RedTackle]

ries.....in Coach King's 18 (or whatever)year tenure, RPI has won more games then they did in about 50 or so years. RPI has had 4 NCAA berths and numerous ECAC wins. Players graduate and come back to the games. Is RT mad RPI didn't kick it?...hell yeah, along with the majority of the fans. But they're the coaches and they must've had a reason to do what they did....

True that.  From personal experience, RPI Football used to be a joke, The Shoes was a non-event.  Now their relevant, and have been for some time and will be for the forseeable future. Trust me, I'm no fan of RPI, but what King has done for RPI from the perspective of their football history has been nothing less than remarkable. And there's no way a coach of his caliber doesn't realize that it would be great to get a FG in that situation, but he obviously had no faith in his kicker, from ANY distance.

which actualy begs an interesting question...how is that RPI FG kicker doing today? RT seriously wonders how is psyche must be because RT agrees w/ the last post that there was no faith there on Sat after the 1st missed FG becuase even RT could make a 26 yd FG (RT was a straight on kicker in HS junior varsity!!)

RT would NEVER want to be a kicker. You're expected to make every XP as well as any FG from 35yds or under. The pressure is huge, plus, kickers tend to not truly viewed as one of the "stud" guys on the team. It's a no win situation....kickers are a entity un to their own

[zachattack22]

Frankly RT, ZA has been saying for some time that ZA would find a "straight on kicker" for 30 yards or less kicks and a soccer style kicker for the long ones.  When you look back at the NFL back "in the day", many field goal kickers were big freakin lineman, kicking the ball straight on.  Soccer style came into play mainly for distance.  Who cares if the straight on kicker only can kick a 30 yard field goal if he's super accurate. Let the soccer style guy take the lower percentage long shots the big guy can't kick. ZA wonders if that would work out...Then again, ZA is nuts!

[Senor RedTackle]

Frankly RT, ZA has been saying for some time that ZA would find a "straight on kicker" for 30 yards or less kicks and a soccer style kicker for the long ones.  When you look back at the NFL back "in the day", many field goal kickers were big freakin lineman, kicking the ball straight on.  Soccer style came into play mainly for distance.  Who cares if the straight on kicker only can kick a 30 yard field goal if he's super accurate. Let the soccer style guy take the lower percentage long shots the big guy can't kick. ZA wonders if that would work out...Then again, ZA is nuts!

hmm...who will take on the homework assignment of providing some FG statistics from the NFL? RT would say we compare the 1950s/60s (era of straight on) vs. the 1970s/80s or 80s/90s for soccer style. Obviously, we'd need to normalize it somehow if the situation exists where there's a big gap in PPG between one era to another because more scoring chances would skew the percentages, in RT's view.

Anyone have any idea on how to do this? Would like to decide if bringing back the straight on guy is an option

[Doid23]

ries.....in Coach King's 18 (or whatever)year tenure, RPI has won more games then they did in about 50 or so years. RPI has had 4 NCAA berths and numerous ECAC wins. Players graduate and come back to the games. Is RT mad RPI didn't kick it?...hell yeah, along with the majority of the fans. But they're the coaches and they must've had a reason to do what they did....

True that.  From personal experience, RPI Football used to be a joke, The Shoes was a non-event.  Now their relevant, and have been for some time and will be for the forseeable future. Trust me, I'm no fan of RPI, but what King has done for RPI from the perspective of their football history has been nothing less than remarkable. And there's no way a coach of his caliber doesn't realize that it would be great to get a FG in that situation, but he obviously had no faith in his kicker, from ANY distance.

which actualy begs an interesting question...how is that RPI FG kicker doing today? RT seriously wonders how is psyche must be because RT agrees w/ the last post that there was no faith there on Sat after the 1st missed FG becuase even RT could make a 26 yd FG (RT was a straight on kicker in HS junior varsity!!)

RT would NEVER want to be a kicker. You're expected to make every XP as well as any FG from 35yds or under. The pressure is huge, plus, kickers tend to not truly viewed as one of the "stud" guys on the team. It's a no win situation....kickers are a entity un to their own

Well, the kid's psyche is a lot better than if King had gone for the FG and he missed it.  At least in his mind he can say he never got the chance, and that if he did he would have made it. Plus, you know what it does to a team to drive down the field and have a kicker miss a chip shot.  At least going on 4th down shows faith in the 11 guys on the field, and that it wasn't left to kicker to decide their fate.

[Doid23]

Frankly RT, ZA has been saying for some time that ZA would find a "straight on kicker" for 30 yards or less kicks and a soccer style kicker for the long ones.  When you look back at the NFL back "in the day", many field goal kickers were big freakin lineman, kicking the ball straight on.  Soccer style came into play mainly for distance.  Who cares if the straight on kicker only can kick a 30 yard field goal if he's super accurate. Let the soccer style guy take the lower percentage long shots the big guy can't kick. ZA wonders if that would work out...Then again, ZA is nuts!

Not sure if it makes sense either, but I'd sure as hell love to see it.  And don't forget about Gus the Kicking Mule, only slightly less ridiculous looking than the old straight on kickers (and yes, back in the day, Doid was a straight on kicker as well....and looked ridiculous).

[Knightstalker]

Frankly RT, ZA has been saying for some time that ZA would find a "straight on kicker" for 30 yards or less kicks and a soccer style kicker for the long ones.  When you look back at the NFL back "in the day", many field goal kickers were big freakin lineman, kicking the ball straight on.  Soccer style came into play mainly for distance.  Who cares if the straight on kicker only can kick a 30 yard field goal if he's super accurate. Let the soccer style guy take the lower percentage long shots the big guy can't kick. ZA wonders if that would work out...Then again, ZA is nuts!

hmm...who will take on the homework assignment of providing some FG statistics from the NFL? RT would say we compare the 1950s/60s (era of straight on) vs. the 1970s/80s or 80s/90s for soccer style. Obviously, we'd need to normalize it somehow if the situation exists where there's a big gap in PPG between one era to another because more scoring chances would skew the percentages, in RT's view.

Anyone have any idea on how to do this? Would like to decide if bringing back the straight on guy is an option

KS would look primarily at the mid 60's through to the late 70's.  This is the time span where you had plenty of both style kickers playing.

[zachattack22]

RT, ZA will try to start getting some stats and insights as to the two styles.  ZA also feels that the straight on kicker kicked the ball higher at the beginning of the kick. Watching many NFL kickers, if one looks at the replays in slow motion, the ball is so closed to getting blocked on many soccer style kicks as the ball starts out real low and hard for distance.

[zachattack22]

ZA has a funny story that kind of relates to straight on kickers.  Many years ago, when my son was about 8 years old, ZA took him to watch a Union practice. One end of the field wasn't being used so we grabbed a ball and ZA showed his son how to hold the ball. ZA started kicking field goals from about the 10 and kept kicking them straight to about thirty yards out, never missing.

At the time, Unions kicker was in a slump and was having some tough times kicking in game situations.

After ZA kicked his fourth or fifth field goal (of course under no pressure to do so) a Union coach came jogging down the field to where ZA and son were.  ZA notices and tells son, "look a coach is coming to say hi to you".  The coach gets to us and says, "please stop kicking field goals".  ZA asked why.  The coach says, "my lineman are busting my kickers ass telling him, look, that old fat guy can kick field goals".

I thought I was getting a compliment until it sunk in that ZA was just called "old and fat".....

[Frank Rossi]

Here's the video of the no-good-turned-to-good-double-ricochet-miracle-51-yard FG from earlier.  I'd be surprised if the refs really didn't use the Jumbotron to make the final call (although they claim they didn't).  Field goals need to be made reviewable, pure and simple.  Give deferrence to calls that clear the uprights to the officials, but a situation like this is predictable and needs to be reviewable for all parties involved.

http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d80448909

[Frank Rossi]

ZA has a funny story that kind of relates to straight on kickers.  Many years ago, when my son was about 8 years old, ZA took him to watch a Union practice. One end of the field wasn't being used so we grabbed a ball and ZA showed his son how to hold the ball. ZA started kicking field goals from about the 10 and kept kicking them straight to about thirty yards out, never missing.

At the time, Unions kicker was in a slump and was having some tough times kicking in game situations.

After ZA kicked his fourth or fifth field goal (of course under no pressure to do so) a Union coach came jogging down the field to where ZA and son were.  ZA notices and tells son, "look a coach is coming to say hi to you".  The coach gets to us and says, "please stop kicking field goals".  ZA asked why.  The coach says, "my lineman are busting my kickers ass telling him, look, that old fat guy can kick field goals".

I thought I was getting a compliment until it sunk in that ZA was just called "old and fat".....

According to '57, you qualify to be the next TCNJ kicker, ZA.  Congratulations!