Syracuse Football Report Card: Who did well against NC State?

Alright, this grade is going to be more of an overall grade for the season thus far, but there is one specific reason as to why it is coming this week. Cole Murphy is a senior kicker for Syracuse and has been the primary kicker on field goals, extra points, and kick-offs for the past three seasons.

Murphy was supposed to be a pretty polished field goal kicker by now in his career, which he really is not, anywhere over 40-yards he is pretty shaky. Murphy missed a 48-yard field goal against NC State, which is no gimme, so he gets a pass on that. His field goal miss is not even what prompted me to grade the Syracuse kicker either.

Murphy has been horrendous on kickoff’s this season. He once again kicked the ball out-of-bounds against NC State on the opening kickoff, setting he Wolfpack up with good field position at their own 35 yard line. This is simply unacceptable, a football field is 53 yards wide and if you cannot keep your kickoff in between the two sideline’s then you simply should not be taking the kickoffs.

Wide right.

Because of this screw up by Murphy, it puts the Syracuse defense with their backs against the wall on the first drive of the game and allowed NC State to put points on the board. According to Cuse.com, that is Murphy’s 4th kickoff that has gone out-of-bounds this season although it feels like there have been more.

In the third quarter Syracuse turned to punter Sterling Hofrichter to kick a 38-yard field goal after Murphy had missed the 48-yarder. An interesting move by Dino Babers hinting at the fact that the Syracuse head man has little faith in his senior kicker.

I really try not to be too hard on these kids, and if Murphy misses a deep field goal like a 48-yarder I understand. Where I have a problem is when Murphy kicks the ball out-of-bounds. This is just simply unacceptable and if he can’t keep the ball in bounds he should not be kicking off.

Hofrichter took two kickoffs in the game, which may indicate that Dino Babers is becoming fed up with Murphy. Hofrichter has kicked off five times this season and hasn’t recorded one touchback, but he has yet to kick the ball out-of-bounds. He should get chances to kick off if Murphy continues his struggles.