Kicking game bites Bears Missed PATs have proven costly vs. Minutemen

Special teams, specifically the kicking game, were a key concern for University of Maine football coach Jack Cosgrove coming into 2006.

Those concerns were realized Saturday at Massachusetts as a determined upset bid by the Black Bears ended when freshman walk-on placekicker Devin McNeill of Portland missed the potential tying PAT kick with 1:44 left in the game.

“I felt deja vu, honest to God, when I was standing on that sideline,” said UMass coach Don Brown, referring to the 2004 game against UMaine at Amherst. In that one, Bears kicker Mike Mellow had an extra point blocked in overtime and the Minutemen escaped with a one-point victory.

Cosgrove tried to shoulder some of the blame after Saturday’s missed PAT, since he had called a fake kick on the previous play, which failed, but was called back because of a penalty.

“It’s on me,” he said. “Fault lies here disrupting the chemistry of the operation with the [fake] call.”

McNeill spoke briefly and emotionally with reporters in the McGuirk Stadium parking lot Saturday after the game.

“My job is a kicker is just block out everything and just kick the ball through the uprights,” McNeill said.

“You’ve got to keep your head up, because there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

Coming into this season, the Black Bears had lost their kicker (Matthew Voliva) who transferred, and punter (Rocco Navarro) to graduation. Kicker Bobby Donnelly of Westbrook returned with some experience.

To up the ante, Cosgrove and his staff went out and found three more kickers. UMaine signed placekicker Luigi Sebastiani Jr. and also got Karwan Karim and punter Kash Kiefer, a transfer and former soccer player who had walked on last year at West Virginia.

The additions produced some fierce competition during preseason. McNeill, a four-year soccer player at Portland High School who played football last fall for the first time, wound up winning the kicking job. Cosgrove said McNeill was significantly better in the percentage of kicks made during preseason, which earned him the starting nod.

And McNeill has been steady during his rookie season. The 5-foot-9, 165-pounder went into the UMass game having converted 25 of 26 PATs and four of six field goals, including a 36-yarder.

One of McNeill’s field goal misses was a 25-yarder in the wind-driven rain and soggy conditions during a 3-0 loss at Rhode Island on Oct. 28.

“It’s the nature of the beast, but we’ve got a major history of it here in Orono,” Cosgrove said of the recent kicking woes. “That [Saturday’s miss] is a little tough on the young guy. He’s part of the operation and we’re going to stand by him and support him.”

With no kicking coach on the UMaine staff, Cosgrove himself has tried to work with the kicking contingent. He spends more time working on the mental part of the position rather than with the mechanics of kicking.

Cosgrove has tried to maintain a sense of humor in his role as kickers coach.

“Kickers are kickers. They’re hard to work with,” he said with a smile earlier this season. “I don’t know how I allowed myself to be associated with coaching them, [but] I have adopted them.”

Sebastiani has handled most of the kickoffs and Donnelly has seen limited duty in that capacity. Kiefer has been quite effective in his role as the punter. The sophomore is averaging 37.4 yards per kick, has landed seven kicks inside the opponents’ 20-yard line and has had five fielded with “fair catches.”

Cosgrove will be looking for more consistency and better field-goal range next season as the young kickers improve and mature.