Everyone remembers Bama missing field goals in big games, but it almost never matters

Other than, you know, the really big ones.

When you saw Andy Pappanastos do this ...

... it looked like a bad movie you’d seen before. The chip shot field goal shanked way left, his second bad miss of the game. The coaches in ESPN’s film room broke down his technique and blamed his plant foot on the bad miss, saying that he “attacked” the ball rather than just letting his body sway through it like a golf swing. I started to worry about the young man’s return to the state of Alabama, just knowing how sports fans can be.

When his counterpart, Rodrigo Blankenship, nailed a 51-yarder with ease in overtime, it looked like Bama’s days really might be numbered. Then Tua Tagovailoa took a terrible sack and spun a beauty of a game winner, and everything was forgiven.

So Pappanastos’ kick goes down in the annals of missed field goals in a big game by Alabama. But I wanted to know, when has a missed kick actually cost the Tide a game?

So let’s look at Bama’s losses.

We keep a running ranking of all 20 Saban-era Tide losses.

We lumped the bottom five into the same category from Saban’s first season. They’re all pretty much throwaway games in a largely forgettable 7-6 campaign, except for the disastrous ULM game.

But what about the consequential games?

In the 15 losses Alabama has suffered under Saban that weren’t in that initial group, Alabama has missed a field goal in five.

Three of them didn’t really matter.

• 31-17 vs. No. 2 Utah in the Sugar Bowl (kick didn’t matter, and the Tide got waxed).
• 21-14 vs. ULM (a hilarious game, but not a big one).
• 35-21 at No. 22 South Carolina in 2010 (kicks didn’t matter; the Tide got waxed).

The fourth loss was in the game of the century.

The hill I will die on is that 2011 Alabama-LSU is one of the best regular-season games of my lifetime. It was a defensive masterclass with a multitude of pros on the field, and it ended 9-6.

What it didn’t have was a ton of offense. And it had even less competent special teams. The “Alabama misses kicks in big games” narrative took off in this game when the Crimson Tide missed four field goals with two kickers.

Alabama missed field goals on its first three possessions, including this 49-yarder.

Kicker Jeremy Shelley would connect on a 34-yarder on the fourth possession of the game. Alabama would make another in the third quarter to take a 6-3 lead.

In overtime, the Tide would miss again.

LSU would connect when it counted on its overtime possession.

The fifth needs no introduction.

However, in other big games, Alabama’s missed field goals but still won in close shaves.

Of course The Process is at times immune to even #collegekickers.

2008 vs. LSU: 29-yard game winner gets blocked by LSU.

The Tide would still win in overtime after intercepting LSU and throwing a TD three plays later.

2011’s BCS Championship vs. LSU: Shelley going five-of-seven was a sight to behold, but at least LSU didn’t score at all and could barely cross the 50-yard line.

2014 vs. LSU: Another overtime game in which Alabama could have used three extra points in regulation. An Adam Griffith 27-yard field goal missed the mark, but the Tide still got the job done.

2015’s National Championship vs. Clemson: An early 44-yard missed field goal by Adam Griffith wasn’t a great kick. But this one to spark the Tide in the second half was.

So yeah, it’s kinda funny to think that the Alabama machine can’t find a competent kicker.

But it almost never actually matters. If the Tide are blowing you out — and they usually are — an automatic kicker would only make things worse.

Alabama has won five national championships in nine years. They have done that with average kicking at best. At worst, the Tide have been downright bad in the kicking game since Saban’s gotten things rolling. Here’s how they’ve ranked year-by-year in field goal percentage:

• 2008: 67th
• 2009: 21st
• 2010: 61st
• 2011: 85th
• 2012: 45th
• 2013: 90th
• 2014: 97th
• 2015: 82nd
• 2016: 57th
• 2017: 90th

They’ll just beat you like a drum seven points at a time.

Oh, and Bama just hired Jeff Banks, a dedicated special teams coach from Texas A&M, meaning more coaching attention for that side of the ball, meaning we might see fewer of these inconsequential misses going forward anyway.

If so, it was mostly meaningless fun while it lasted.