Saints sign Garrett Hartley

[LSUdeek]

http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2008/10/new_orleans_saints_choose_kick.html

What are you guys' opinion of Hartley? We've been through 2 kickers already this year.... :D

[CK Sooner]

http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2008/10/new_orleans_saints_choose_kick.html

[LSUdeek]

http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123392

[Boomer.....]

Judging by the comments, the fans don't seem confident with either. Hartley is a great kicker with a strong leg. Hopefully he will last a while.

[Boomer.....]

Good for Hartley.

[Big Red Ron]

sweet

[StoopTroup]

Very cool.

I posted in this one because I felt it deserved more responses. :D

The deal with kickers in the NFL is....

You can miss a few here and there and still play in the NFL for a long time.

But...

Miss more than one Game Winner....

I wish Garrett the best and hope he has a long career there.

[badger]

I really hope he makes it.

Kickers really have no job security in the NFL (although college kickers can be evicted with a snap of the fingers too, as evidenced by Trey DiCarlo's Baylor departure). They are the only position where perfection isn't just desired... it's EXPECTED. If you miss a kick or whiff too many punts, you, yourself will get the boot.

Such is the case with the Saints - haven't they gone through three kickers now?

For Hartley's sake, I hope he is ready for extra pressure. He has a really strong leg and should be solid at field goals. However, the extra points need extra work, if I remember him well.

[Hot Rod]

I miss having Garrett on the squad this year. Agree with ST...a great kicker is needed in NFL games (see Titans/Colts game Monday night).

This is good news to hear for Hartley.

[badger]

http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2008/10/new_orleans_saints_choose_kick.html

What are you guys' opinion of Hartley? We've been through 2 kickers already this year.... :D

Well... we have two threads going on this... but since you're form LA and all...

Hartley has an extremely strong leg. In practices they would line him up at 60 yards and he would make it.

His weaker points are his closer kicks, but wow does he have a leg.

[Big Red Ron]

Hartley's the best kicker I've seen at OU since the Lasher's.

[badger]

Hartley's the best kicker I've seen at OU since the Lasher's.

If we include punters, we had a pretty good one in 2000 :)

[Big Red Ron]

If we include punters, we had a pretty good one in 2000 :)
Punter's don't score game winners, so they don't count.

[badger]

Punter's don't score game winners, so they don't count.

You don't think a certain epic maneuver in our own endzone won the game?

(cue epic maneuver music as he expertly dodges the punt blocker)

[JLEW1818]

can the Sooners resign him please?

[85sooners]

:texan:

[85sooners]

:cool:

[CK Sooner]

:cool:

:mad:

:D

[Collier11]

http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2008/10/new_orleans_saints_choose_kick.html

What are you guys' opinion of Hartley? We've been through 2 kickers already this year.... :D

Above average leg and very accurate, seems to struggle with extra points randomly though

[SbOrOiNaEnR]

Kickers really have no job security in the NFL (although college kickers can be evicted with a snap of the fingers too, as evidenced by Trey DiCarlo's Baylor departure).

Somebody please refresh my memory if I'm wrong, but didn't DiCarlo essentially decide about halfway through 2004 that he just didn't want to play football anymore, and once he lost his drive, he started shanking kicks right and left (I'm not accusing him of doing it intentionally...but it seems like those two things could go hand-in-hand), so THAT'S why we burned Garrett's redshirt?

As for Hartley, I think he'll do good things for the Saints. Biting my nails everytime Stevens kicks a PAT, and watching Moreland's kickoffs land at the 20 make me long for the days of GH.

[badger]

Somebody please refresh my memory if I'm wrong, but didn't DiCarlo essentially decide about halfway through 2004 that he just didn't want to play football anymore, and once he lost his drive, he started shanking kicks right and left (I'm not accusing him of doing it intentionally...but it seems like those two things could go hand-in-hand), so THAT'S why we burned Garrett's redshirt?

As for Hartley, I think he'll do good things for the Saints. Biting my nails everytime Stevens kicks a PAT, and watching Moreland's kickoffs land at the 20 make me long for the days of GH.

From what I heard, he was told that if he missed any kicks at the Baylor game that year he was finished. From secondhand perspectives, I heard that after he missed a kick that game, he walked over to the practice net and just kind of stared at it silently, like he knew his OU career was over and that he was going to get replaced by a freshman.

[SbOrOiNaEnR]

From what I heard, he was told that if he missed any kicks at the Baylor game that year he was finished. From secondhand perspectives, I heard that after he missed a kick that game, he walked over to the practice net and just kind of stared at it silently, like he knew his OU career was over and that he was going to get replaced by a freshman.


Here's kind of what I was talking about...I'm sure we're both right.


Trey DiCarlo Leaves Oklahoma (Friday, February 25, 2005)

Oklahoma place-kicker Trey DiCarlo has left the OU football team. The senior-to-be said the reason is not because he lost his job to true freshman Garrett Hartley last season, but that he's tired of football. "'It's just like there was a personality conflict between me and football," DiCarlo said. "Even if I'd had a good year, I'm not sure if I would have returned. Even after my sophomore season (2003), I was thinking, 'Do I want to do this?"'

http://www.gnextinc.com/ousoonersblog/2005_02_01_archive.html

[bosworthsteroidmafia]

That's it, I'm starting him on my fantasy team this week.

[SbOrOiNaEnR]

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to hijack this thread and turn it into a VH1 "Where Are They Now?" special on Trey DiCarlo. I just found this article from November 18, 2004...two days before that Baylor game. Publicly, it sounds like they have confidence in him, but I'm sure behind closed doors, it was a whole different matter. I do like BJW's repeated use of "swift kick in the rear."


Sooner coaches say DiCarlo working out kinks

By James Hale

Posted Nov 18, 2004

Bob Stoops and Bobby Jack Wright talk about Trey DiCarlo's kicking woes.

Right now one of the biggest questions surrounding the second-ranked Sooners is the state of junior place kicker Trey DiCarlo. A Groza finalist a year ago, DiCarlo is in the midst of the worst slump of his career, and right now it is easy to see that OU Head Coach Bob Stoops has lost some confidence in him.

DiCarlo is a very average 8-for-15 overall, 2-for-5 between 30 and 40 yards and 0-for-4 on kicks 40 yards or longer. DiCarlo has done a good job kicking off with most of his kicks going into the end zone or being placed where the OU coaching staff wants them.

The OU coaching staff knows that Trey is a better kicker than this and they are just waiting for him to bust out.

“Trey has struggled a little bit recently, but he has also hit some good balls,” said Stoops after Wednesday’s practice. “He hasn’t been hitting it as good as he can or as good as we have seen him kick it, but he is working on it and he is getting closer.”

A kicker is basically on his own working out of his slumps. There isn’t a kicking coach on the Sooner staff and special teams coach Bobby Jack Wright has never been a kicker. DiCarlo has had some outside help and Coach Stoops feels he can help DiCarlo work things out.

“There are probably a lot of guys we could call that could help him, but we are limited on what we can do,” said Coach Stoops. “I would like to think that I can help him. I have been around kickers for a long time and I understand the fundamentals. Trey isn’t far off and he has a strong leg. We have noticed some things that he needs to work on and he has been this week. He is working hard on it and we just have to send him back out and hope he comes out of it because he is certainly capable of kicking the ball through the uprights from 50 to 55 yards out.”

Stoops and his staff have never been hesitant to pull a player out of redshirt if it would help the team and the Sooners have Garrett Hartley waiting in the wings. Hartley was considered the top prep kicker in Texas last season and he has a strong leg. However, at this point the Sooner coaching isn’t thinking about pulling the redshirt off of Hartley. At least not at this moment.

“That is not something that I am thinking about doing at this time,” said Stoops. “Trey isn’t that far off and in practice Trey still does a little better than Garrett. He is a little more consistent. Garrett is going to be a great kicker for us in the future, but right now Trey is the guy we are going with. If I thought it would help our team to put Garrett in there I would do that, but right now our best chance to win in the kicking game is with Trey.”

Bobby Jack Wright is the defensive end and special teams coach at OU and talked to OUinsider.com about Trey’s problems. More importantly, he was asked if Trey can come out of his recently slump.

"“I am going to give him a swift kick I the rear, which is my medicine for him I guess," said Wright. "No, he is struggling right now as a lot of kickers do and Trey is kind of in a slump. It is no different than a major league batter who is hitting .300, but gets in a two to three week slump and he is 0-for-17 and that type of thing. Kickers go through that and it is catching us at not a good time. Really, any time for him to go through it is not good, but we are trying to make a push for a championship and it is a little more critical for us right now. However, he will be fine. He is a guy that knows what he is doing and he has spent a lot of time working on his technique, looking at his mechanics and trying to get some things corrected that we have seen on tape that are maybe a little bit different that he needs to be doing.

"He is trying to clean it up and again it is no different than Tiger Woods," Wright continued. "Tiger Woods is the best in the world, and all of a sudden he can’t find a fairway. All last summer Tiger Woods was hitting them right. That is kind of how Trey is right now. He can’t find the uprights and Tiger Woods couldn’t find the fairway. It is something that athletes go through and I look back last year to the kicker at A&M. Todd Pegram was really struggling and was barely at .500, but this year he is 13-for-13 and he should be a Groza finalist in my opinion. He hasn’t kicked that many, but he has been absolutely perfect on the year. That is something that kickers go through. There is nothing you can do except to keep plugging and keep working. Hopefully Trey will find his swing again."

Do kickers revert to film when they struggle?

“Any athlete studies film today, whether you are having success or failure. Film is a great feedback because you get to see it right there immediately. So, regardless if he is successful or not, we spend time every day looking at video tape. We watch exactly what he is doing on different kicks.”

However if all else fails the swift kick in the rear is the old coaching standby?

"Yeah, that is that great special teams coaching of mine," laughed Wright. "If he doesn’t kick it through the uprights I kick him. No, I am kidding. Trey is a competitor and he has done well the two years previous. He is just in a little slump and it bothers him because he is a competitor and he has a lot of pride. He wants to make all of his kicks and certainly there is nobody more disappointed about it than Trey.”

Is the mesh between the holder and the kicker where it needs to be?

“Oh yeah, there hasn’t been any problem there," Wright said. "The snap has been good and the holder is good. The only problem that Trey has is that he is not sticking it between the sticks."

http://oklahoma.scout.com/2/320736.html

[psmith]

Cool, great news.

[badger]

I know this is (one of two threads on this very same board going right now) about Hartley, but Bob definitely gave DiCarlo a chance, it just turned out that Hartley was better. Trey had a drop in confidence (the kicker thing is a mental thing too, not just how strong your leg is or how perfect your form is) and Bob was being quoted as saying stuff like "The blades of grass were too long" or some weird excuses like that. Trey had his chance, it just turned out Garrett (who, btw, looked like a cute surfer before the haircut) was better.

That said, here's hoping Hartley has an outstanding career with the Saints, and of course, all the best to Trey as well. His time with OU may have been short, but it's a short time that many people here would have given anything to be a part of.

[Sooner04]

DiCarlo was very good, but he was good because he felt no pressure, but he felt no pressure because he smoked more weed than many thought possible. I don't remember exactly when he flunked the drug test and had to quit, but once he lost his edge from the weed he became a giant ball of nerves. After that, he was toast.

That's why Hartley went in at the half of the Waco game of 2004.

The end.

[oumartin]

he smoked more weed than many thought possible

Why was this necessary to post?

[Boomer.....]

Why was this necessary to post?

He must have thought we were talking about Jabari Brown.

[SbOrOiNaEnR]

As long as we're talking about Jabari... (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4558461/#storyContinued)

[LSUdeek]

How many other issues with football players' consistency are due to non-football related issues?

Maybe LSU's defense all found out they had baby mamas over the past 3 weeks. :confused:

[TUSooner]

I hope he succeeds, for his sake and the Saints'. I'm trying to remember the last Sooner to play for the Saints. Could it have been Derland Moore or Tinker Owens in the long gone days of yore ?! Surely there has been one more recently who I just can't remember....

[TUSooner]

I hope he succeeds, for his sake and the Saints'. I'm trying to remember the last Sooner to play for the Saints. Could it have been Derland Moore or Tinker Owens in the long gone days of yore ?! Surely there has been one more recently who I just can't remember....

Besides Jammal Brown, I mean :O :O :O


Thanks '04!

[LSUdeek]

Besides Jammal Brown, I mean

:D

[badger]

I hope he succeeds, for his sake and the Saints'. I'm trying to remember the last Sooner to play for the Saints. Could it have been Derland Moore or Tinker Owens in the long gone days of yore ?! Surely there has been one more recently who I just can't remember....

I know you said "Sooner" but if we're talking about Oklahoma's athletes I think one of our defecting-to-Tennessee wide receivers plays for them now.

Yet another reason why we need to waltz into Rocky Top and crush the Vols so that they never are able to steal Oklahoma talent ever again... or at least raise the price boosters have to pay for them to do so ;)

[starclassic tama]

As long as we're talking about Jabari... (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4558461/#storyContinued)

some blatant racism right there. you are trash

[SbOrOiNaEnR]

some blatant racism right there. you are trash

I knew some ****head would throw that in my face. I honestly don't have a clue who Jabari Brown is, could care less whether or not he's white, black, blue, red, orange, or purple. I posted that because the thread was heading clear off-topic anyway, and the only other time in my life I'd ever heard the name "Jabari" before reading the thread this morning was four years ago when the DPD shot and killed a Western Lowland Gorilla with the same name.

[LSUdeek]

I know you said "Sooner" but if we're talking about Oklahoma's athletes I think one of our defecting-to-Tennessee wide receivers plays for them now.

Yet another reason why we need to waltz into Rocky Top and crush the Vols so that they never are able to steal Oklahoma talent ever again... or at least raise the price boosters have to pay for them to do so ;)

Meachem couldn't do much more than run in a straight line, and that's really all that the Saints are asking him to do right now. He doesn't offer much over Devery, so I really don't see them having him long term.

[starclassic tama]

haha you have never heard of jabari brown? yet you are an OU fan? pathetic.

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Hartley's the best kicker I've seen at OU since the Lasher's.

TIM DUNCAN

[Big Red Ron]

TIM DUNCAN Nah, not a better kicker than Hartley. We've all seen Hartley in pregame warmups kicking field goals from the opponent's 45 ydl. Tim was a solid kicker, don't get me wrong but Hartley has a chance at being one of the greats in the NFL now.

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Nah, not a better kicker than Hartley. We've all seen Hartley in pregame warmups kicking field goals from the opponent's 45 ydl. Tim was a solid kicker, don't get me wrong but Hartley has a chance at being one of the greats in the NFL now.

Oh no you don't mister..we're gonna argue some kickers now..

Duncan used to line em up from the other teams goalline and boot em through...Ok maybe not but I remember seeing him boot some from the 50 in pre game...He also had a brief NFL career with Arizona and I think Philly....his 46 yarder in the big 12 championship game against K State with just over a minute left...allsome...his 2 fg's in the NC game...allsome...

I don't that Hartley will be a great NFL kicker, but at least he is gonna get a paycheck

[SbOrOiNaEnR]

haha you have never heard of jabari brown? yet you are an OU fan? pathetic.

I don't have much interest in OU basketball (evidenced by the fact that I've NEVER ONCE posted in the Hoops forum), so I have no reason to know anything about OU basketball before my time as a student there. Quit being an @ss for no reason.