Sarah Fuller kicks off for Vanderbilt

malmo wrote:

2020 wrote:

Here's a different angle. Looks like she was aiming for that empty spot near the side line.

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You don't understand. She was aiming for the sideline so that she could give the receiving team the ball at the 35 yard line. Uh, nevermind.

Nope. Put your glasses. It was an intentional short kick. The Vandy team swarmed where they knew the kick was headed. She did not carry through with the leg kick like she kicks in a soccer game (goalie for the NCAA champ Vandy team). The kick went far enough for Vandy to try to recover it. If the ball bounces upward Vandy had a chance to get the ball and score some points (they ended up being shut out).

So what? It is one play. She is not as good as a guy and guys can't play on her soccer team so this should not have been allowed.

ahem, no wrote:

malmo wrote:

You don't understand. She was aiming for the sideline so that she could give the receiving team the ball at the 35 yard line. Uh, nevermind.

Nope. Put your glasses. It was an intentional short kick. The Vandy team swarmed where they knew the kick was headed. She did not carry through with the leg kick like she kicks in a soccer game (goalie for the NCAA champ Vandy team). The kick went far enough for Vandy to try to recover it. If the ball bounces upward Vandy had a chance to get the ball and score some points (they ended up being shut out).

Are you..... Are you trying to say that was an onside kick? If so, it was theWORST onside kick in the history of kicks. Even worse than if she was actually trying to kick it deep.

Quorum wrote:

Since a lot of you don't seem interested in context, I thought I'd provide some here.

A common criticism I've seen is that this was some kind of publicity stunt by Mason. Let me preface this by saying Mason is certainly a terrible coach and I don't know of anyone that doesn't agree he should've been long gone by now, but this is a situation where he shouldn't be faulted for anything but shortsightedness. The reason Sarah Fuller was brought on to do this is pretty simple. A significant portion of Vanderbilt's special teams squad, including all the kickers, had to go into quarantine in the week leading into the game, as is wont to happen when a bunch of college guys practice together and likely live in the same space.

All their kickers were not out. Harrison Smith has been Vanderbilt's punter last year and this year. He punted 7 times in the game against Missouri.

As someone else pointed out, it seems like Smith would have a strong leg to do place kicking, even though it's a different skill. Many punters did place kicking in HS since they had the strongest leg on the team.

ahem, no wrote:

Nope. Put your glasses. It was an intentional short kick. The Vandy team swarmed where they knew the kick was headed. She did not carry through with the leg kick like she kicks in a soccer game (goalie for the NCAA champ Vandy team). The kick went far enough for Vandy to try to recover it. If the ball bounces upward Vandy had a chance to get the ball and score some points (they ended up being shut out).

bryan evans wrote:

Are you..... Are you trying to say that was an onside kick? If so, it was theWORST onside kick in the history of kicks. Even worse than if she was actually trying to kick it deep.

Bryan, I hope you know more about track than you do about football. There is a huge difference in an onside kick and an intentional short kick. As "ahem, no" pointed out, in an intentional short kick, the kick is done so in a manner that gives the kicking team a decent chance to recover the ball, while still kicking the ball further down the field than one would in a "traditional" onside kick.

Yes, much like an onside kick you're hoping for a weird bounce or bad handle of the ball by the receiving team, BUT you're guaranteeing that the receiving team starts deeper in their own side of the field if they properly receive the ball. The reason is that by the time they get the ball, the coverage from the kicking team is usually right on top of them, either forcing a fair catch, an immediate drop down to a knee or they are tackled almost instantly. If you do a traditional onside kick and you (the kicking team) don't recover, the opponent (the receiving team) has the ball 30 yards or so further up the field than in this intentional short kick and their chances for scoring either a touchdown or FG go way up.

Literally nobody does this because the male receiver (like in this case) knows how to catch a football and the kicker is more likely (like almost in this case) to get penalized for a free kick out of bounds.

Kick it through the end zone for a touchback. Gain 10 yards and eliminate the possibility of their returner smoking your special teams defense (again).

Oh, you mean she couldn't kick it through the end zone? Then why is she out there?

The lesson from all of this....is that letting a girl play football gets you fired!! I mean, I'm sure his 0 and 8 record in 2020 and his overall 27 wins and 55 losses record in 6+ years had everything to do with it, but I'm twisting the narrative here ;)

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2920178-derek-mason-fired-as-vanderbilt-head-coach-todd-fitch-named-as-interim

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

The lesson from all of this....is that letting a girl play football gets you fired!! I mean, I'm sure his 0 and 8 record in 2020 and his overall 27 wins and 55 losses record in 6+ years had everything to do with it, but I'm twisting the narrative here ;)

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2920178-derek-mason-fired-as-vanderbilt-head-coach-todd-fitch-named-as-interim

Lots of qualified women's soccer coaches who deserve a chance to do his job. Those who don't identify as binary sex to the front of the line, please.

Which makes more sense in the year 2020 - a woman being the kicker on a men's football team or a man being a gynecologist and obstetrican?

obgyn wrote:

Which makes more sense in the year 2020 - a woman being the kicker on a men's football team or a man being a gynecologist and obstetrican?

My wife has had both and prefers men obgyns because women hate other pregnant women. It's some kind of deep biological resentment. You see the same behavior in less advanced primates.

In any case there are few jobs men can't do better than women. Wet-nursing might be one.

It seemed like using her as a kicker happened more or less organically. The other students had been dismissed for Thanksgiving, Covid protocols had elimated the other specialists etc. Under the circumstances, I thought she might have actually been a solid choice. But when I heard she actually lectured the team about their lack of enthusiasm during a halftime speech ... Can you imagine being a player on the team and having to listen to that from anyone, male or female, who has never made a tackle in their life and been on the team for 5 minutes? That's a bad look.

ahem, no wrote:

malmo wrote:

You don't understand. She was aiming for the sideline so that she could give the receiving team the ball at the 35 yard line. Uh, nevermind.

Nope. Put your glasses. It was an intentional short kick. The Vandy team swarmed where they knew the kick was headed. She did not carry through with the leg kick like she kicks in a soccer game (goalie for the NCAA champ Vandy team). The kick went far enough for Vandy to try to recover it. If the ball bounces upward Vandy had a chance to get the ball and score some points (they ended up being shut out).

You just cannot comprehend how completely illogical your post is.

She was intentional kicking the ball short in case of a one in 50 chance the kicking team gets a lucky bounce and recovers it? Yeah, thats the ticket.

bryan evans wrote:

obgyn wrote:

Which makes more sense in the year 2020 - a woman being the kicker on a men's football team or a man being a gynecologist and obstetrican?

My wife has had both and prefers men obgyns because women hate other pregnant women. It's some kind of deep biological resentment. You see the same behavior in less advanced primates.

In any case there are few jobs men can't do better than women. Wet-nursing might be one.

Interesting. Too bad there are almost no women on these boards. I'd love to hear whether they'd rather have a male or female OBGYN. As far as the 2nd statement, I'm going to guess the US would not be in the mess that it is in if there were more women in positions of power - qualified women, not airheads like Betsy DeVos or Sarah Palin. The president-elect seems to be taking steps to remedy this situation.

I think that the coaches probably worked it out in advance to make sure that the great publicity event of a woman playing in an SEC football game would not get drowned out by the horrible publicity of a woman being badly injured or killed in an SEC football game by a blocker or kick returner. So, Vandy promised to give them good field position, while the opponents agreed not to run it back in a 41-0 game. That meant that she kicked it short on purpose, thus undermining the gender message that was the purpose of the stunt. Women are very capable and many great women soccer players could kick the football a long way.

Harris or Pelosi? Both are crazy. Biden is 100 times better than those two combined.

Why bother with the kickoff? Why not just have someone hold the ball on a field goal attempt? Anyone could do that. There is not easier job in all of sports.

nonamejoe wrote:

Welll since my college does not have men's track and field any longer, can I run on the girls team as a 800 runner? Their 800 runner is not very good.

Here's how I look at the male/female divide in sports. You have the "open" category. Anyone can compete. That's the male category Then you have the protected category. No Y chromosomes. Maybe we need a few other qualifiers as well, I'm not sure. That's the female category.

So, women are free to try to compete in the male category because that's the open category. But men cannot compete in female category because that's protected. Men don't qualify. Neither does Caster Semenya.

stunts wrote:

LSU had a woman kicker a few years ago who could kick 50 yard field goals. She practiced with the team but they never let her kick in a game because they were afraid she would get injured by someone blocking her.

Yeah, Mo Isom was gorgeous, too. Thank goodness they didn't let her kick and get hurt.

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

The lesson from all of this....is that letting a girl play football gets you fired!! I mean, I'm sure his 0 and 8 record in 2020 and his overall 27 wins and 55 losses record in 6+ years had everything to do with it, but I'm twisting the narrative here ;)

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2920178-derek-mason-fired-as-vanderbilt-head-coach-todd-fitch-named-as-interim

I do wonder now if the coach wasn't tipped off to his pending termination and this was just a ploy to use the girl to try to keep his job. It's such bad PR for Vandy to fire the only guy diverse and brave enough to field a girl to a P5 team.

It looks like he may have underestimated how obtuse Vandy's administration is.