Kicking the game away

Published 7:00 pm Tuesday, January 2, 2018

ORLANDO, Fla. — Bottom line, LSU missed two ridiculously makeable field goals that might have come in handy in a four-point loss to Notre Dame Monday in the Citrus Bowl.

No surprise there.

LSU kickers have been donking footballs off of every spare object in various stadiums all season.

It’s a wonder no one was injured.

So both the wayward kids, Connor Culp and Jack Gonsoulin, missed a short one in the first half.

The absurdity was that the Tigers actually took the lead late on … a field goal.

A who?

Yeah, LSU’s signature victory was a pair of late field goals that completed the upset of Auburn.

No one has ever explained that anomaly.

They were thinking it could happen twice? That’s not milking the gag too far? Crazy thing is, it almost worked.

If only head coach Ed Orgeron hadn’t been so logical in settling for the field goal that put the Tigers up 17-14 with 2:03 to play.

If he’d let that Cajun emotion boil over — by that point probably not wanting to even look at his placekickers, let alone put the game on one of them’s foot — then maybe he says the heck with it and goes for it on fourth and inches in a tie game with just over two minutes to play.

But no.

So while the entire Tiger sideline held its breath and the LSU fans behind them covered their eyes and reached for smelling salts, Gonsoulin got one to find the way the fairway.

Nothing involving a kick has been routine for the Tigers this year.

And of course, it still came back to haunt LSU when Notre Dame’s Miles Boykin one-handed a catch and split two defenders for a 55-yard game-winning touchdown.

Even when they make field goals, it blows up in the Tigers’ faces.

A touchdown would have been better, of course.

It was less than a foot to the goal line.

Make it and at worst you’re looking at overtime.

Instead, Notre Dame, which was probably playing for a tying field goal on its final drive, stumbles onto a Sports Center highlight.

“Obviously you think about it,” Orgeron said of his decision to kick. “But you go ahead with under two minutes to go and your defense has played well. I thought we could stop them and I wanted to give our team a chance to win.”

Of course, he had a perfectly fan-friendly excuse if a fourthdown gamble came up short — who in their right mind would send an LSU kicker out there after what they’ seen in the first half (and most of the season).

But that’s hindsight.

Settle down.

Of course you kick it there.

Logic dictates it.

It’s not even extra-point length — and Gonsoulin somehow had made both point-afters he tried, which haven’t exactly been automatic this season.

Sure, Orgeron probably wished now he’d gone for the touchdown and bet on his team pushing across six points from six inches away.

But, for that matter, the Tigers didn’t have much luck in the “game of inches” either.

LSU had been down there before.

The first field goal miss came when LSU came up inches short on quarterback Danny Etling’s third down quarterback sneak.

The Tigers were going for it there, but Tory Carter false-started and the 5-yard penalty made it a no-brainer.

<p class="indent">It looked like Etling got in, though nothing in the replay review could confirm it. Guice also swore that before the last field he’d scored, although he appeared a little short.

<p class="indent">It recalled LSU’s last frustrating loss to Notre Dame — an Irish field goal on the last play of a 31-28 Irish win in the 2014 Music City Bowl.

<p class="indent">The Tigers still swear they scored a fourth-and-goal touchdown on a fake field goal on the final play of the first half and came away with nothing, even after further review.

<p class="indent">Monday, Notre Dame’s 2-point conversion that tied the game at 14 was originally ruled short but overturned — correctly — after review.

<p class="indent">Bad karma, bad luck, whatever.

<p class="indent">But there was plenty of blame to go around in game that the Tigers always seemed to be, well, “inches” from taking control of.

<p class="indent">“We just looked sloppy,” Orgeron said.

<p class="indent">This is the kind of loss that will sit in the craw of a fan base for the offseason.

<p class="indent">Worse, the Tigers, kickers excepted, looked like the better team, certainly the more talented.

<p class="indent">Most surprisingly, LSU was missing three starters in its defensive front seven and the offensive line still has two true freshmen starters.

<p class="indent">Yet LSU still held its own across both lines of scrimmage, particularly against the nation’s best offensive line.

<p class="indent">That’s a game LSU should win.

<p class="indent">That’s a game that shouldn’t come down to one team making a big, miraculous play in the clutch.

<p class="indent">Orgeron probably knows it.

<p class="indent">It will put a damper on an offseason that, with a win here, could have been remembered for how the season turned around after the loss to Troy and ended with such promise.

<p class="indent">Now there is this frustration at the finish against a team that most LSU fans dearly love beating.