Tie game. 35-35.

Less than two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Eastern Illinois and Tennessee State had been going back and forth all day. Whomever had the ball last was going to win the game.

Close games can save sloppy football. Neither team had been perfect. Each made mistakes. Excitement at the end of games can erase four quarters of dismal play.

There was only one minute left. Someone had to win the game.

Eastern was moving the ball closer and closer to scoring distance, but time was nearly up.

Thirty yards.

Three seconds.

Snap. Hold. Kick.

Three points.

Eastern wins 38-35. Junior Tyler Wilke is the hero.

When offenses falter at the end of drives, there is only one player to call upon to salvage some offensive production. The kicker.

Fourteen games have been decided by three or fewer points this season in the Ohio Valley Conference. In some instances – like Wilke’s kick at the wire to beat TSU on Oct. 26 – a last-second field goal determined the outcome.

Straight through the uprights and it’s game over, celebration time. A bad snap, bad hold or bad technique could mean a missed field goal. Mere inches left or right, and the kick is no good. The game would be lost.

When the offense or defense is on the field, all 11 players are put on the spot. When the kicker comes on, all the attention, all the pressure is on them. Make it, and you’re the hero. Miss it, and you’re the goat.

“I was more nervous than he was I think,” said Eastern special teams coach Justin Lustig about Wilke’s winning kick against TSU. “He was pretty calm and collected. Before the kick he came up to me and said, ‘Coach you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ He went out there and was positive about it and just nailed the kick.”

Wilke said he knew Eastern Illinois’ offense was playing well all game and he knew they would be able to drive down the field to within at least field goal distance. He said he had a good snap, a good hold, good protection and he was able to make the kick.

Wilke said when he’s on the sideline he focuses on his steps and technique and tries to block everything else out. He said one thing he tries to do is kick like he does in practice.

“Most of the time with practice I’m able to relax,” Wilke said. “But then you get in the game and you get a little jacked up on adrenaline. Going a little bit too hard at the ball will mess everything up.”

Wilke said most of the blame for his misses on kicks falls on him. He has made 8-of-13 field goals this season but is a perfect 40-of-40 on point after touchdown conversions.

“We’ve been working on it enough with our holds and our snaps that it’s hardly ever them,” he said. “So it’s mostly me. There’s always one little flaw in my technique that causes it to go left or right.”

Eastern junior long snapper Brady Woolverton said he works with Wilke and the holder on perfect mechanics and perfect repetitions. As the snapper, he said he tries to get as many perfect snaps in as he can during practice.

Woolverton said being a long snapper is all about focus and concentration.

“I’ve got to get the snap back there first before I can make a block, and then coverage comes at the end,” he said.

Even with practice, the perfect kick does not always occur. Bad holds happen.

“Our kickers are around 90 percent when they use their mechanical tees; when they get to hold (the ball) exactly the way they want it,” Lustig said. “You put a human holder in there and the ball is not tilted correctly or the laces aren’t exactly the right way, now your percentages go down.”

Pressure is another cause of missed kicks. Kickers spend most of the game waiting on the sideline, and then they are asked to come out and perform in intense situations.

Despite the pressure and scrutiny, kickers in the OVC have come through this season.

TSU kicker Eric Benson was the first of several last-second heroes in the OVC.

The Tigers were deadlocked in a 13-13 tie with Jackson State on Sept. 8 after quarterback Antonio Heffner completed an 11-yard touchdown pass to running back Terrence Wright with 8:30 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Benson was called upon, and as time expired he kicked a 35-yard field goal to give TSU a 16-13 win.

Benson pulled off similar heroics the next week at Austin Peay, kicking a 43-yard field goal with nine seconds remaining to send the game into overtime. His PAT after a touchdown by running back Javarris Williams sealed the Tigers’ victory.

Despite three failed PATs against TSU, Austin Peay kicker Issac Ziolkowksi has his own last-second heroics this season.

Ziolkowski drilled a 29-yard field goal with second on the clock to give the Governors a 30-27 victory at Tennessee Tech on Oct. 6.

Austin Peay coach Rick Christophel said emotionally he was not worried about Ziolkowski making the field goal. If the field goal was missed, the Governors would have had to go into overtime and win it there.

Christophel said kicking is a stressful position.

“You can either be the goat or be the hero,” Christophel said. “It boils down to it’s all on (the kicker).”

For Ziolkowski, a true freshman, these are all relatively new experiences. This is only his second year as a kicker. Christophel said the Clarksville, Tenn., native was a soccer player in high school and only had one year of high school football experience.

However, the OVC is not just about kickers coming through in the final seconds of a game. They don’t give national rankings for last-second field goals. They do give national rankings for most field goals made and field goal accuracy.

Jacksonville State senior kicker Gavin Hallford is ranked No. 1 nationally in the Football Championship Subdivision in field goals made with 22.

Hallford has made at least two field goals in six of JSU’s 11 games this season. He started the season at Alabama State on Sept. 1 with four field goals, connecting from 42, 36, 36 and 21 yards; missing just once. He topped that twice in the next four weeks going 4-of-4 on field goals against Chattanooga and at Murray State.

Hallford is also sixth in scoring for kickers in the FCS with 99 points. Delaware kicker Jon Striefsky is first in the nation in scoring with 116 points. Hallford has made 22-of-29 field goals this season and converted 33-of-34 in PAT’s. His lone miss on a PAT came Nov. 10 against Eastern Illinois.

“It feels real good to be ranked No. 1 in anything,” Hallford said. “I just have so many opportunities. If my offense didn’t get down there then I wouldn’t have that many, so it just depends on how they move the ball.”

JSU coach Jack Crowe said a poor kicker could mean losing about 20 percent of a team’s offensive production. He said it is critical to have a kicker in close games because in one or two games each year games the outcome will be dependent on a made or missed kick.

Crowe said there is also downside to having a kicker make so many field goals. “We kick too many damn field goals sometimes,” he said. “There’s some bad to that number of kicking so many field goals. The bad was you’re in the red zone and not scoring a touchdown very often. I think having a bunch of points kicking field goals lends itself to another problem.”

Hallford’s four field goal game against Alabama State was a 24-19 loss for the Gamecocks. JSU scored only one other time on an interception return for a touchdown.

Hallford said he has just tried to remain consistent in his kicking routine, keeping his approach and kick the same each time. He said it’s important to keep everything in one motion going in the same direction.

“It’s just one fluid motion that keeps everything on track,” he said. “If I rotate my hips just the slightest, bit it’s going to turn my leg. Once it does that I’m going to start hitting (the ball) wide.”

Eastern Kentucky junior kicker Taylor Long has also kicked four field goals in one game. Long, 10th in the FCS in field goal accuracy, has made 13-of-14 field goals (92.9 percent) and 44-of-46 PATs this season.

Although he said he is honored to be nationally ranked, Long said he still has to treat each week with the same goal he had when the Colonels started their season. To make kicks.

Long said his success this season all started with preparation, working each day in practice to become mentally and physically prepared. Part of his preparation is kicking 150-200 balls each week in practice.

Mental preparedness is essential for a kicker. Long said before each kick he attempts he visualizes himself making the perfect kick.

“In kicking it’s probably 90 percent mental and 10 percent going out there and making it happen,” Long said.

That preparation helped him go a perfect 4-of-4 at Eastern Illinois on Oct. 6, connecting from 34, 33, 32 and 21 yards.

Long’s lone field goal miss this season came on a 33-yard attempt on Oct. 27 at Murray State, a game in which he made two field goals of 21 and 34 yards.

After the Murray State game, Long said he went back and watched his missed field goal on film and saw he pulled off the kick and didn’t have his hips aligned with the uprights. He said he tries to carry his foot through the ball downfield and right through the middle of the uprights. His hip direction and leg follow-through determine whether the kick will make or a miss.

He compared his kick follow-through to a basketball shot where the last part of the body to touch the ball – the foot in kicking and the fingers in shooting – is what is used to follow through on the kick or shot.

He didn’t do that on his missed field goal.

“I have a bad habit of coming off the side and swinging across my body,” Long said. “Perfect snap. Perfect hold. It was my fault. I know I have a tremendous snapper and a great holder. I know the ball will be there. I have to do my part.”

That is the mindset of a kicker; an island on the football field. No other position is as stressful or pressure-packed for such a short period of time.

The difference between hero and goat comes in inches, not feet. The kicker is the player who has the weight of his entire team on his shoulders for those few seconds he drops back seven yards from the line of scrimmage for a field goal.

FACT BOXES

OVC Kicker Stats

Name/School————————–FGM—FGA—XPM—XPA—LONG—PTS

Gavin Hallford/Jacksonville State—22—29—33—34—45—99

Doug Spada/Southeast Missouri—-14—22—21—23—50—63

Mark Prevost/Samford—————-14—21—28—30—48—70

Taylor Long/E. Kentucky————-13—14—44—46—34—83

Justin Kraemer/Tennessee Tech–12—15—39—41—51—75

Tom Hansen/Tennessee-Martin—-11—15—42—45—44—75

Issac Ziolkowski/Austin Peay———9—14—22—28—43—49

Tyler Wilke/E. Illinois—————–8—13—40—40—42—64

Eric Benson/Tennessee State——–8—11—38—41—45—62

Tyler Weiss/Murray State———–7—10—32—32—48—53

Tyler Wilke Career Stats

FGM—FGA—FG%—XPM—XPA—XP%—LONG—PTS

11——–20—–55—– 40——–40—–100——-45——-73

Gavin Hallford Career Stats

FGM—FGA—FG%—XPM—XPA—XP%—LONG—PTS

35——–49—–71.4—–67——68—–98.5——45——172

Taylor Long Career Stats

FGM—FGA—FG%—XPM—XPA—XP%—LONG—PTS

29——–41—-70.7—–110—–115—-95.7——39——-97