My ideal kicker is one that is seldom used. We lost at Texas last time because we settled for short-yardage field goal attempts, if we'd left the kicker on the sideline where he belonged, we might've won.

By my calculations, between 2005 and 2012 BYU's place kickers were a bit under 5 points below average on field goals over all eight seasons combined, compared to what I would expect a D1A average kicker to do (most of the damage was done in 2012, we were a bit under 9 points *over* the average entering the 2012 season). Over the same span, kicking field goals in situations where the point-optimizing strategy (given average offense and defense) would've been going for it cost BYU about *77* points.

If Samson missing a 75% FG in the opening game discourages Bronco from making frivolous FG attempts, he may wind up being the field goal kicker we need. A good field goal kicker can actually harm a team by encouraging suboptimal field goal attempts.