Goal post width reduction will test college kickers

ORONO – You play golf? You say you’re pretty good at it? How would you feel if the game’s rule makers decided too many low scores were being recorded so they’re going to shrink the size of the cup?

If your sport is basketball, imagine the rim being raised from 10 to 11 feet. Tennis? Picture the net raised another six inches. Too many first serves getting in, don’t you know.

Now you’ve got the feel for what’s facing University of Maine All-ECAC placekicker Jeff Mottola and his college football kicking counterparts across the country this season.

Effective this fall, the width of the goal posts has been reduced from 23-feet, 4-inches to 18-6, an overall reduction in target area of 4-feet, 10-inches, or 20 percent.

The reason for the shrink-job is the NCAA Rules Committee’s feeling today’s kickers are scoring too many points between field goals and Point After Touchdowns. According to the 1991 NCAA Preseason Guide, field goal points increased 15-fold since the goal posts went to 23-4 in 1959, from 1.02 percent of all points in ’59 to 15.65 percent in 1984.

“Short field goals and extra-point kicks had become about as exciting as watching a man ice fishing,” commented NCAA Secretary Rules Editor Dave Nelson, the former UMaine coach, who only two years ago outlawed the kicking tee on field goals and PATs.

Mottola, a junior at Maine this year and one of the premier returning kicker in all of Eastern college football based on his nailing 13 of 18 field goals and 21 of 22 PATs last season, is taking a surprisingly broad view of the narrowing issue.

“It really doesn’t bother me,” said Mottola, a native of Somers Point, N.J., who also earned All-Yankee Conference honors last year. “It has its good points and bad points. The good part is it will force guys to be better. You’ll have to be accurate even from shorter distances.”

The bad points, according to Mottola, stem from the fact the rules committee is leaving the hashmarks as they’ve always been – closer to the sidelines than in the pro game. This will result in short field goals being made more difficult because of tough angles created by hash placements.

“It’s going to mean a coach is going to think twice about kicking a field goal inside the 20,” said Mottola, who said he will kick between 30 and 60 balls a day at the narrower target in practice to prepare for the season.

Maine coach Kirk Ferentz is not happy with the rule change.

“I think it’s a crazy rule,” said Ferentz. “No one yet has done a good job explaining why they did this other than to justify the meetings they have.

“I don’t think it’s fair to penalize these guys (kickers),” Ferentz continued. “The role of the specialist has changed. As a result, these guys spend time at it. They work hard. I don’t think it’s fair to penalize them for working hard.”

According to the NCAA Guide, the rules committee also believes kicking needs to be reduced because “the game was never intended to have 22 players pound each other up and down the field, only to have a specialist in an immaculate uniform come in and decide the issue with one swing of his leg.”

Both Ferentz and Mottola answered that charge the same way.

“It’s part of the game,” they said.