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Kicker with kick

FSU's Janikowski can drill 'em -- field goals and players

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Posted: Thursday September 23, 1999 10:29 AM

By Tim Peeler, Special to CNN/SI

The Polish Powder Keg? Clayton White has no arguments.

White, a linebacker for N.C. State, was on the receiving end of Florida State kicker Sebastian Janikowski's first tackle of the season. At 6-foot-2, 260 pounds, Janikowski has always looked like a linebacker, and Saturday he showed White, who was trying to return a botched extra point attempt for two points, that he can hit like one, too.

"I was just afraid someone was going to blindside me,'' Janikowski said, not wanting to talk about his tackle. Janikowski's other hits are worth noticing too. Against the Wolfpack, Janikowski tied his own school record with five field goals of 30, 47, 22, 31 and 47 yards.

After his first field goal attempt of the year bounced off the crossbar, Janikowski has hit nine in a row and is on pace to shatter the NCAA record of 29 field goals in a season, which he missed by two last year. The Polish-born, left-footed kicker has also boomed 21 of his 26 kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks. The Wolfpack started 13 of their 14 drives in the game at or inside the 20-yard line.

"There's just not a whole lot of use in working on your kickoff return team this week," said North Carolina coach Carl Torbush, whose team faces the Seminoles on Saturday.

Janikowski, who won the Lou Groza Award as the nation's best kicker last year, said missing his first field goal, a 48-yarder against Louisiana Tech, taught him a lesson. He did some extra work in practice and believes he has worked out any problems.

Problems?

"Hey, you're the kicker," Janikowski said. "You have to be perfect."

Floyd creates problems

N.C. State offered to host Saturday's ECU-Miami game at Carter-Finley Stadium. With much of Greenville, N.C., underwater, the Pirates took NCSU up on the offer and moved the game 80 miles west to Raleigh. North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest all have home games this weekend and will be collecting canned food and other supplies to send to flood victims in eastern North Carolina.

Getting some attention (Part I)

But the rebuilding Terps got plenty of attention after shutting out West Virginia 31-0 last Saturday.

Now, Vanderlinden, who entered the season with a 5-17 record with the Terps, has a week off to sit back and enjoy the attention. Not that he got to see any of it on television. The Vanderlinden household was without electricity for four days, courtesy of Hurricane Floyd.

Otherwise, Vanderlinden has plenty to smile about. His reconstructed defense is ranked second nationally in scoring defense, after allowing only 10 points in three games. He has an all-star candidate in Lewis Sanders, who has intercepted a pass in all three games, scored a touchdown on a 98-yard kickoff return and picked up a fumble and returned it 28 yards for another touchdown. He has an experienced defensive backfield and linebackers, who have been able to negate the Terps' lack of defensive rush.

They will get their biggest test of the season after this week's open date, when they travel to face No. 10 Georgia Tech and Heisman Trophy candidate Joe Hamilton.

Getting some attention (Part II)

Virginia, which plays at BYU on Saturday, didn't send out a CD full of highlights or a mousepad with Jones' picture on it -- as Georgia Tech did for Heisman hopeful Joe Hamilton -- but the school is sending out postcards to national media.

"Thomas Jones, a common name, but uncommon ability," the postcard reads. "Here's a Jones you want to keep up with."

Welsh believes Jones, who has rushed for 100 yards 12 times in his career, is at least as good as Wisconsin's Ron Dayne, Alabama's Shaun Alexander or Miami of Ohio's Travis Prentice, all of whom get more attention.

"I can't see anyone in the country better than him -- I really can't," Welsh said. "It would be impossible for there to be anybody better than him. Maybe there are a couple guys as good.

"He's catching the ball, he's blocking, he's making spectacular runs, making guys miss, running with some power. Who else in the country is as good a back as him?"

Last week, Jones scored a career-high three touchdowns and had 164 yards rushing against Wake Forest.

Third time the charm?

But when third-string quarterback D. Bryant was forced to take a semester off school for academic reasons, first-year head coach Carl Franks talked Thompson into rejoining the team.

When Spencer Romine went down with a separated shoulder in the first game of the season, Franks turned to junior Bobby Campbell to start against Northwestern. Campbell was only 2 of 14 in passing for 12 yards, so Franks inserted Thompson into the lineup. He completed 12 of 32 passes for 153 yards and won the starting job for this weekend's game against surprising Vanderbilt.

However, the Blue Devils haven't scored a touchdown in two games and are ranked 104th in NCAA scoring statistics.

Bowden: "Back off"

"I talked to the defense last week, 'Men, why don't we quit trying to block punts?' Every time we do, we rough the punter," Bowden said. "We have the best returner in the country [Peter Warrick], why don't we just return? No, we want to keep on blocking. So now what do we do? We get three or four penalties returning punts. We just simply can't break our kids of that. We're giving up too much field position with the potential we got there. We got a dimension of our football team that we can't use because of our penalties, which is killing us."

The Seminoles, which had 11 penalties for 88 yards against N.C. State, have more penalty yards per game (84.3) than any team in the ACC.

Worth noting

Tim Peeler covers the ACC for the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record. Check back each Wednesday for his latest CNN/SI Insider.

 

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