Arizona State HC rips 'atrocious' kicking game, announces open tryouts

Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham has seen enough from his kickers and is ready to start looking for alternatives anywhere he can find them.

Following the Sun Devils' 24-14 loss to Cincinnati on Saturday, which featured two missed field goals from kicker Ian Hershey, Dillingham shredded his team's kicking game in his postgame press conference.

Along with calling the kicking game "atrocious," he called all Arizona State students by saying there would be open tryouts on Monday.

He seemed completely serious about that as well.

Entering play on Saturday, Hershey was 7-for-10 on the season on his field goal attempts, a number that only got worse with his two misses against Cincinnati.

The team's other kicker, Carston Kieffer, missed his only field goal attempt of the season. Between the two of them, they are just 7-for-13 on field goals and 24-for-26 on extra points.

That is a lot of missed kicks and points left out on the field.

That not only impacts the game by missing the kicks, but it might also impact Dillingham's decision-making on what to do on fourth downs in big situations. If he has no faith in his kickers, he might not be willing to take an easy three points when the opportunity should present itself.

College kickers are notoriously inconsistent, so there will always be an element of unpredictability in that aspect of the game. But he has seen enough from what he has and will now leave no stone unturned on campus when finding somebody he can trust.