Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief:
this was ill advised and patronizing, I could give a shit if a women plays football, but it should be merited...
In fairness, aren't kickers pretty-much all women? Hell it's a job you can do with half a foot and be successful. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
Look at her mechanics on that kick; it was a pooch/squib kick all the way. If she botched it, her leg still would've ended up high around her upper chest/shoulder height; instead, she kicks that ball with her instep, as if she was passing a soccer ball to someone 20 yards away.
She played goalie for a top-5 college women's soccer team so we know she has a good leg.
The coaches decided for whatever reason to have her kick that pooch kick.
Maybe but they showed her in pregame warmups and kicking into the net on the sideline. She never followed though with all her kicks. They all looked like that kickoff low drives with little follow-through. Maybe they never intended her to kick an extra point or a real kickoff possibly so she just practice all week for the pooch kick. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Boxer_Chief:
You can keep with this whole soccer angle but you should just stop. They showed her in pregame and her range was 20 yards and barely putting it over. It looked awful. It was worse than most all high school football games. There had to be multiple better options out there. She’s a good soccer player, awesome, but to act like since she can kick a soccer ball it will translate is sorely mistaken.
Yep saw that and they wouldn't have got past the lineman as they were low. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Boxer_Chief:
You can keep with this whole soccer angle but you should just stop. They showed her in pregame and her range was 20 yards and barely putting it over. It looked awful. It was worse than most all high school football games. There had to be multiple better options out there. She’s a good soccer player, awesome, but to act like since she can kick a soccer ball it will translate is sorely mistaken.
Well as I said, I didn't see the game, just the clip.
But I do know soccer players. And you can't play for a D-I school mens or women's team as a goalie and not know how to kick a ball.
In fact, goalies are just about the most versatile and athletic players on a soccer pitch.
They have to be able to punt directionally, drop kick directionally, goal kick, and pass equally well, or you can't play goalie at that level, period. So the idea that she doesn't know how to kick a ball with the top of her foot like a standard kick-off is hilariously pathetic.
And we can see quite clearly that she kick that ball with her instep, so it was not a botched kick. There's absolutely no possibility of that, period. She kicked that as a pooch kick on purpose. Anyone that's played soccer at least at the HS level for a competitive team can watch that clip and know instantly what she was trying to do. Which wasn't 'drive the ball downfield,' ever.
And btw, just fyi, kicking a soccer ball deep and kicking a football towards the EZ are pretty much the same thing, mechanically. Maybe that's why all NFL kickers these days were soccer players before they became NFL place kickers?
Maybe you should stick to talking about shit you actually know something about. [Reply]
Originally Posted by LoneWolf:
I’ve watched soccer live in Italy and England. I am by no means a soccer fan and was taken to these games by business associates, but I do know the mechanics of a goal kick. Not normally a huge follow through and it is mostly about driving the ball with backspin.
Are you of the mind that this woman was playing today because she was so awesome at kicking a football that she earned her way onto the team?
Watching and playing are vastly different things.
And I have no idea how she got on the team, and i wasn't speaking to that at all. What I've been trying to tell you is that she couldn't have played goalie for a top 5 D-I women's soccer team and know only one way to kick a ball. That's simply not a thing at that level. She would've had to have better-than-average ability to punt, drop-kick, pass, and drive the ball downfield, or she never would've been given the position of goalie at that level.
So if she kicked it with her instep, it's because she was told to kick it that way, period, end of story. There's simply no scenario where a goalie at her level would only know one way to kick a ball. And there's no way she kicked it that way by accident, either. [Reply]
And I just watched the ESPN replay of her kick, and right afterwards as she runs back to the sideline, every one gives her a high five, including one of the coaches, and no one is looking at her like "what was that?" So I think we can put the dumb idea that she botched the kick to bed now. [Reply]
Originally Posted by LoneWolf: I’ve watched soccer live in Italy and England. I am by no means a soccer fan and was taken to these games by business associates, but I do know the mechanics of a goal kick. Not normally a huge follow through and it is mostly about driving the ball with backspin.
Are you of the mind that this woman was playing today because she was so awesome at kicking a football that she earned her way onto the team?
Our apartment in Rome was 1 mile (as the crow flies) from the Stadio Olimpico. We went to quite a few games back in the 70s, it was freakin awesome... [Reply]
She was asked by the Vandy football coach to fill in for their normal place-kicker who was going to be out due to COVID. So she may not be on the team next week and may never kick another football in her life. She was recruited due to extraordinary circumstances.
It seems Vandy's HC needed someone to be able to reliably kick the ball off consistently in a safe direction and they ended up asking Sarah to fill that role. Which makes the pooch kick understandable now. Also, it's nearly impossible to injure yourself kicking a pooch kick, while a full-on kick-off motion might cause a hamstring injury. Mystery solved. [Reply]
