There were 32 seconds left Saturday when Oklahoma State kicker Ben Grogan took the field, prepared for everything to come down to him. Kansas State led by two points, and Grogan was faced with a potential game-winning 37-yard field goal attempt.
Then came the ice.
Before Grogan’s foot could even hit the leather for a practice kick, the referee’s whistle blew. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder had called timeout.
With one signal to the official, Snyder resorted to what more and more coaches are doing in college football: He put the kicker on ice, a move meant to make the kicker think even longer about stakes involved.
In that instance, Grogan didn’t let the strategy faze him. He nailed the kick and Oklahoma State moved to 5-0.
Though it may seem to some a cheap, even cruel tactic – a coach messing with a young amateur athlete’s mind at one of the most pressure-packed moments of his playing career – it’s become ingrained in the game.
The icing didn’t work in this instance, but most of the time it does. According to the Associated Press, STATS found that this season kickers have made 36.8% (7 of 19) of their field goal attempts when a coach calls a timeout in the final two minutes of a game. Last season the success rate was 80% (28 of 35). Not only are kickers missing more of their attempts, coaches are using the tactic more often.
But even with these numbers, some kickers claim getting iced is no big deal. They’re so focused that getting two or three extra “practice” kicks doesn’t bother them.
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“There are two ways to look at it I think,” said Memphis kicker Jake Elliott, who was unsuccessfully iced twice in the 2014 Miami Beach Bowl against BYU. “One is you get iced and you have more time to think about it, and that can cause distractions.
But another way to look at it is you have a lot better feel of what you’re about to go through and then if they call a timeout, you have a chance to go back and regroup.”
With 45 seconds left in regulation last December, BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall burned two timeouts to ice Elliott on an extra point that he eventually made and tied the score, sending the game to overtime. In the first extra period, Mendenhall called timeout to ice Elliott again on a 54-yard attempt. Elliott shanked the first kick, but made the one that mattered, forcing a second overtime. Memphis eventually won, 55-48.
Elliott said a kicker has to stay focused no matter what happens to the kick he takes when the referee blows the whistle on the timeout. “That can’t get into your head,” Elliott said. “You can look at it as, I know how to hit this ball (if you miss it), or in the back of your mind think, shoot, that one should have counted. It’s a huge mind game.”
In Week 1 of the 2015 season, Notre Dame led Texas 17-0 with four seconds left before halftime as Longhorns kicker Nick Rose prepared to attempt a 52-yard field goal. He made it, but the whistle blew just as his foot made contact with the ball, so the kick was called back. Rose tried again, and the kick was good. But Brian Kelly had called a timeout on the second kick to void that one as well. On Rose’s third try, he missed.
“If you’re out practicing field goals from that distance, he probably makes two out of three and it just so happens, the one he misses is the one that counted,” said Jamie Kohl, a former college and NFL kicker who runs a camp for high school, college and NFL kickers. “I do think honestly if you’re human, that could be frustrating because he hit two great field goals live and neither one counted. If he missed one of the first two, maybe he makes the third, I don’t know.”
The next week Mississippi State had a chance to beat LSU when Bulldogs kicker Devon Bell lined up for a 52-yard attempt with three seconds to go. Bell’s first kick went wide, but LSU coach Les Miles iced him, so he got another try. He missed.
Miles explained his thought process for that and similar instances by saying, “If you try to make the call … do you want to give him another leg swing at it or not?” Miles said. “It just kind of depends on the kicker and the situation and the distance. I think their kicker kicked it pretty well the second time. In fact I wish I’d let him have the first kick.”
Texas kicker Nick Rose reacts after missing a field goal in the second quarter against Notre Dame. (Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports)
In Week 3, icing worked in a kicker’s favor. Iowa and Pittsburgh were tied 24-24 with two seconds left when Hawkeyes kicker Marshall Koehn prepared to take a 57-yard field goal, the longest of his career. Then Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi called a timeout. The first kick fell short, but the second was perfect. Iowa is 5-0 in part to Koehn’s clutch play that night.
“It’s a feel thing,” Narduzzi said of the call. “I wanted him to swing through it and call as late as possible. If I had to do it again, maybe you don’t give him the practice swing. I wanted to call at the last second where he thinks he’s gonna kick it.”
One of the most important pieces of advice from one kicker to another in such moments is to always play through the whistle. Worst case, you miss it and you get a mulligan. Maryland’s Brad Craddock, who won the Lou Groza Award last year recognizing college football’s best kicker, has never been iced, but is so confident in his mental approach that he doesn’t believe it would affect him.
“You do your thing and if you’ve been iced, then you go back and do the exact same thing,” Craddock said. “You don’t want to change any preparation. If I’m to get iced, I’ll kick. If they call off before I kick, I’ll walk away from the spot and do my whole process again.
“For me, I don’t really see the point in (icing), because I’m gonna do the same thing every single time. And if they call a timeout and I get to kick the ball, I’ve got a visual of what I need to do. If I miss, I know what I need to do to correct it, and if I make it, I’m good.”
Narduzzi, who is in his first year as a head coach after spending eight seasons as Michigan State’s defensive coordinator, had never iced a kicker before the Iowa game. He said coaches are “doomed if they do and doomed if they don’t” call that timeout.
“Every kicker you talk to, they’re gonna project that, ‘Hey I had no problem, it didn’t affect me,’ ” Narduzzi said. “Of course they’re gonna say that, because that’s what everybody is gonna say. Because if you interview a kicker and he says, ‘Yeah, I hate when people ice us,’ then yeah they’re gonna ice the guy. It gives them more time to think about it. The more time you have to think about it, the more time you have to think about all the things you have to do to make sure it goes through those uprights.
“But you (as a coach) gotta take a chance. You’re at the mercy of that kicker and hoping he kicks it wrong.”
Iowa celebrate after kicker Marshall Koehn kicks the game winning 57-yard field goal over Pittsburgh to win 27-24. (Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports)
