Georgia Football: 3 Dawgs primed for big impact against Kentucky

Jack Podlesny

Last season, Jack Podlesny became a fan favorite following his go-ahead 53 yard field goal against the Cincinnati Bearcats in the Peach Bowl that gave Georgia the lead and the eventual win. It was a solid debut season for Podlesny, as he was also a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza Award, the award given to the nation’s most outstanding kicker.

Like his predecessor Rodrigo Blankenship, Podlesny was a walk-on at UGA. He is from lovely St. Simons, GA, and played for Glynn Academy in Brunswick, a school that my high school would beat up on a lot in football. 🙂

This season, however, “Jack Pod” has been up and down. He is currently 9-for-12 on his attempts, but has made all of his extra point attempts. On paper, that’s not a terrible stat line, and you certainly can’t complain about being perfect on extra point tries.

However, his misses have come in some big games this year, such as the Clemson game and last week against Auburn. Looking back, the misses didn’t hurt the team that badly, but more points would have made Dawg fans breathe a little easier.

As we have seen in the NFL this season, however, kickers everywhere are missing field goals like crazy. Go back and watch the Bengals-Packers game from last Sunday for reference. Maybe the football gods are messing with kickers everywhere this year?

Don’t expect Pod to struggle too much longer this season. Just two weeks ago against Arkansas, he went 3-for-3 in all of his field goal attempts. Another perfect kicking day this Saturday against Kentucky will help the fans get back on the “Jack Pod” train and boost his confidence that he can be one of the best kickers in the SEC.