This past offseason, Florida coach Will Muschamp joked that he wanted to stop standout kicker Caleb Sturgis from entering the NFL draft by petitioning the NCAA to grant him an extra year of eligibility.
It seemed like he was joking, at least.
Muschamp finds nothing funny about the mess his place-kickers created this season and already has benched two of them. When No. 22 Florida visits No. 14 Missouri on Saturday (12:21 p.m., WTCN-15), the team will place its trust in a walk-on who spent his first three years of school watching the road games on TV.
That would be Francisco Velez, a redshirt junior more commonly known inside the football facility as “Frankie” and not commonly known at all outside it.
He made a 44-yard field goal in the first quarter and added a 27-yarder in the fourth during his debut Saturday at LSU, and that was enough to keep him on the job another week.
“I thought he did great, especially to start the game,” quarterback Tyler Murphy said. “The first kick of the game — a lot of pressure — wasn’t an easy kick. I thought he did a great job, and hopefully he’ll just continue to get better and keep progressing. We’re going to need him.”
Velez became a necessity after Austin Hardin and Brad Phillips squandered their chances. When Florida (4-2, 3-1 SEC) opened training camp in August, the competition was between those two.
Hardin, the only scholarship kicker on the roster, was supposed to be the answer. He won the job in camp but immediately looked shaky. He missed a 39-yard field goal in the season opener and from 41 yards against Tennessee.
Muschamp tolerated those miscues. However, he erupted after snafus each of the following weeks.
In the Kentucky game, Hardin went out for a 53-yard field goal and took so long setting up that Florida had to burn a timeout before he could take another shot. Then he kicked short and wide right.
The next week, against Arkansas, Muschamp yanked him early in the game after his 48-yard kick was batted at the line of scrimmage.
“Austin just kicked it too low,” he said. “Had nothing to do with penetration. I could’ve blocked it.”
Exasperated, Muschamp gave Phillips a turn. He hit a 28-yard field goal against the Razorbacks but missed an extra point late in the game.
Wonder how Muschamp felt about that one? Phillips was left off the travel roster for the trip to LSU.
As if it needs to be said at this point, life after Sturgis isn’t going smoothly. While he drills field goals as a rookie for the Miami Dolphins, the Gators are second worst in the SEC with four misses.
Missouri (6-0, 2-0) also is having some issues, by the way, having missed three of its nine attempts.
With field goals no longer a sure thing, the Gators are rethinking fourth-down calls when they enter what used to be considered scoring territory.
“There’s no question it’s changed our approach,” Muschamp said. “We’ve made some adjustments as far as going for it in some situations that maybe we wouldn’t have in the past.”
Even if Velez proves consistent, the arrangement is imperfect. Heading into the LSU game, Muschamp told the kickers he planned to use Velez on anything 47 yards and shorter, but Hardin would kick field goals from 48 and beyond.
