GAINESVILLE — For one snap, all the pressure rests on one man and his foot. Unlike other football positions, there are no redos, no other downs, no going back. Make it through the uprights, and he’s a hero. Miss, and fans mumble about replacements.
Senior Trey Smack embraces the challenge of being Florida’s kicker with nonchalance. He insists the job isn’t as hard as people make it out to be, even with a sharpened focus on Florida after the team fired coach Billy Napier.
“It’s only mentally challenging if you make it mentally challenging,” he said.
It’s easy to joke about it for someone like Smack, who consistently plays a role in the Gators’ wins. Power isn’t an issue with a leg like his. Smack tied the current record of eight 50-or-more-yard field goals and tied a career-high kick length of 56 yards against Long Island University. He put that game behind him quickly, though.
In that season opener, Smack missed three times, an uncharacteristic performance for one of Florida’s most consistently well-performing players. The Gators still won 55-0.
“I had to go back and kind of reset myself with my mindset and tell myself, ‘Hey, it’s football. You do it for a hobby. Don’t act like it’s a job,’ ” he said.
The reset worked. Smack is perfect in field goals since then and kicked two field goals more than 50 yards in the game against Mississippi State for the first time in his career. His distance has been crucial for a hobbling Gators offense struggling to put together consecutive first downs. If Florida can cross the 50-yard line, there’s always a chance.
Much of it depends on the external factors. Smack approximates his limit in game situations is about 65 yards (despite kicking a 69-yard field goal in practice), but that’s in perfect conditions. Rain, for example, makes footballs heavier, and they sink in the air quickly. Wind also plays a role, skewing the ball left or right depending on how the air circulates in the stadium.
His routine remains the same, no matter the weather: for the first three downs, he keeps his helmet off and monitors the play on the field. As soon as the unit is called, he jumps to warm up his legs before taking a practice kick. Then, he walks on the field and finds a target.
From there, it’s all about the snap, the hold and his kick. Smack has done it enough times to know when his kick just feels right. And usually, it does.
“People make it a lot more difficult than I feel like it really is,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about it getting there. I got to worry about where I’m putting it.”
It’s hard to believe, but Smack started kicking as a hobby. Like most soccer players, a thought lingered in the back of his mind: how far could he kick a ball? During the COVID-19 pandemic, he needed a hobby and decided to just try.
Nine months later, he went to his first kicking camp, but the expectations were low. After all, he was a lacrosse player with a good foot. When the rankings came out, he scrolled past the first 15 players automatically. After he couldn’t find his name in the top 100, his dad texted him: dude, you’re No. 13.
“There is a lot of pressure for us specialists, but you can create a new like narrative in your head where it’s like, I’m just out in the backyard taking a couple field goals.”
As Florida tries to right its season in Saturday’s afternoon game against Georgia, locker room leaders like Smack will try to prevent the team from fracturing even more. It’s a pressure-cooker for Florida, but it’s easy for Smack. After all, all he wants to do is see the smiles of the offensive lineman after the ball goes through the uprights.
“ Football doesn’t define you as a person,” he said. “It doesn’t define you at all. It’s just a game.”
