Blair Walsh’s Year to Remember
As a Georgia Bulldogs fan, if you do a search for Blair Walsh on my left side bar, you will see just how much I have supported the sophomore kicker from Boca Raton. If you are a long time reader of my blog, you already know. A great deal of space has been dedicated to the promotion, defense and praise of Blair Walsh. At this point, an I told you so might be in order, but I would never ever do that. Heehee.
Blair had one of the best single season records in the history of Georgia football. His 90.5% is third best in school history. Blair hit field goals of 50, 51, 52, and 53 yards. By the way, he is already tied for #2 in career field goals over 50 yards for a career(6). He was 37-37 on PAT’s. One of his two misses came from 55 yards. He led the SEC with 17 touchbacks, even though many times he was asked to forgo the deep kick for short high kicks for coverage purposes.
He kicked a game winner against Arizona State that kept a struggling Georgia team’s head above water during it’s tough early schedule. His miss against LSU was an inexplicable anomalie based on his body of work this year.
Some people are curious to say the least as to why Blair did not make any All-American teams. He was after all, named a finalist for the Groza Award for the nation’s top kicker. Kai Forbath of UCLA won the award. The reason is simple, field goal attempts. There were at least twenty-five kickers that had more attempts than Blair, therefore there were eleven with more field goals made. it was to their credit that the Groza people saw past that to bestow the honor of his being a finalist. The sad part is, no one else has looked past these facts.
I will be honest, Kai Forbath deserves all the recognition he’s gotten. The young man was 26-29 on field goals and all of his misses were from 50 yards or more. That is pretty strong. My problem is with Blair not getting any first team All-SEC recognition. Leigh Tiffin attempted more field goals than any kicker in the country(33). He made 29, with one kick of 50 yards. His misses were of 36, 39, 43 and 49 yards. He also missed 3 PAT’s… do you hear the crickets chirping? To me this single stat can’t be over looked, but it has been.
So the bottom line of all this? Blair’s exceptional year will be remembered by the Georgia faithful, but his omissions from any first team All-SEC listings are a travesty. The fact that he has not made any All-American teams while disappointing, is not evidence of a hose job. He just did not have enough attempts. The fact that he played on an average Georgia team didn’t help.
I am glad he has two more years to try and reach these two goals.
He is very deserving.
Tell me what you really think!