Denis Lynch is 12 of 18 on field goals this season. As Tajwar noted in his First-and-10 breakdown, he's 3-8 on kicks of 30-39 yards (including both misses Saturday) and 7-7 on kicks of 40-49 yards. That puts him tied for 86th in the country at 66.7 percent.
As Lincoln Riley noted, Lynch's first miss did come because he hit holder Will Rose's foot on his motion to the ball. But it sounds like there is no wavering on Lynch as the kicker right now, even though Alex Stadthaus was 6-6 last year on field goals and perfect on extra points.
"Very high [confidence]. The holder moved his foot on the first one, he kicked the holder's foot -- I've never seen a kicker who can make a field goal and hit the holder's foot. If he could do that, he'd be really good. Yeah, just barely, just didn't hit a great ball on the second one. Those happen. But then yeah, he comes back and drills a 49-yarder into the wind that ended up being the differentiating points in the game. Listen, these decisions that we make in a game, there's no 100 percent decisions, right? You can go coach it all you want, your players can do everything perfect throughout the week. Not everything is going to work out. You prep the best you can, the players prep the best you can, you get into the games, you let it rip. If there's a continuing problem, of course you're going to address it or make adjustments, but no, we've got a lot of confidence in Denis and I think Denis showed his confidence by going back and nailing that one because that was a big kick and a big momentum kick in that game."
As Lincoln Riley noted, Lynch's first miss did come because he hit holder Will Rose's foot on his motion to the ball. But it sounds like there is no wavering on Lynch as the kicker right now, even though Alex Stadthaus was 6-6 last year on field goals and perfect on extra points.
"Very high [confidence]. The holder moved his foot on the first one, he kicked the holder's foot -- I've never seen a kicker who can make a field goal and hit the holder's foot. If he could do that, he'd be really good. Yeah, just barely, just didn't hit a great ball on the second one. Those happen. But then yeah, he comes back and drills a 49-yarder into the wind that ended up being the differentiating points in the game. Listen, these decisions that we make in a game, there's no 100 percent decisions, right? You can go coach it all you want, your players can do everything perfect throughout the week. Not everything is going to work out. You prep the best you can, the players prep the best you can, you get into the games, you let it rip. If there's a continuing problem, of course you're going to address it or make adjustments, but no, we've got a lot of confidence in Denis and I think Denis showed his confidence by going back and nailing that one because that was a big kick and a big momentum kick in that game."
