Is it just me or are there a lot less (if any!) barefoot placekickers now than 10-20 years ago? I can’t remember the last time I saw a barefoot kicker… ANyone know why?
Barefoot kickers have fallen out of vogue because I don’t think anyone could prove that there was any advantage to it.
Tony Franklin was a pretty good kicker, but I don’t think his lack of footwear made that much difference.
Jason Hanson and Martin Grammatica can kick the ball pretty far, without a tee and at narrower goalposts than Franklin did when he was in college and they are both successful in the NFL and they both wear two shoes.
Also, it’s illegal to kick barefoot in high school, so it’s hard to get accustomed to it.
Well, outside the opinion that barefoot kicking was likely more of a fad than a competitive advantage, its fallen out of favor for one basic reason. In the 70s and early 80s when barefoot kicking was at its peak there were basically a handful of types of football shoes. They were pretty rigid and often high-topped. Kickers may have felt more comfortable and flexible when kicking with bare feet than shoes designed for support and running. Over the last decade when even kickers have become millionaires, and specialization has taken a life of its own reaching virtually every industry, the burden of “football” shoes is gone. Now kickers are able to design and special order very specializd kicking shoes custom made for their feet. This wasn’t done in the age of barefooters. Today, I’d wager that a shoe specifically designed for a kickers foot is going to be better than what nature provided. Not to mention more comfortable, prevents injury, and is good in various field conditions.
Maybe so, but most of them use soccer style shoes. Look cerfully at most kickers and you’ll see a standard soccer shoe with the 13 studs on the sole and the three stripes on the side (I’m an Adidas fan and a soccer player, so I tend to notice these things :)).
In any event, did you ever kick a tee with a bare foot? It HURTS! Not to mention the fact that it’s cold out there.
There’s no really good reason why you can’t kick barefoot. Actually, it’s more accurate, because you’re striking the ball clean instead of hitting the ball with the laces of your shoes. That tends to make the ball travel in a more erratic pattern.
I think it’s the pain factor that really matters.
And incidentally, if I recall, Tony Franklin still hold the record for longest field goal in either college or the pros, at 65 yards. Pretty good kicker, indeed.
Being and adidas and soccer fan myself, I notice the shoes, too. One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that several kickers I’ve seen have cut off the foldover tongue of the shoe, which is interesting since the foldover is supposed to help mitigate the effect of the laces.
Minor Hijack -
I know for sure the record in the NFL is 63 yds shared by Tom Dempsey and Jason Elam. here is a link to a news story about it.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/news/1998/10/25/elam_record/
As for college the record according to http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0003105.html is 67 yards shared by Russell Erxleben and Steve Little.
The major college records for field goals of 67 yards were both set by kickers who got to use a tee and got to kick at much wider goalposts than in use today. If you don’t think that’s significant, compare field goal kicking to golf and think how much further you can hit the ball when it is teed up as opposed to it being on the ground. I believe an NAIA kicker hit a 68 yard field goal, although he was using a tee.
The major college record for longest field goal without a tee is 65 yards by Martin Gramatica of Kansas State in a 1998 game against Northern Illinois. I believe KSU’s stadium was artificial turf which would be a big help as the kicker would have a better surface to kick off of.
I’ve seen some good high school kickers drill 60 yarders off of a tee in practice. That one inch off of the ground makes a very big difference.