Tennessee football 2019 recap: Top 10 Vols players of the season

Finally, Tennessee football has a kicker who is reliable on long field goals. Brent Cimaglia had one of the greatest years in history for a place-kicker on Rocky Top, and it was more than enough for us to put him on this list. What else could we say about a guy who was nearly perfect and when he only had one miss all year that was truly his fault?

Cimaglia was 23-of-27 on the year, he still has yet to miss an extra point in his entire career, and he hit both field goal attempts beyond 50 yards. Beyond 40 yards, he was nine-of-11 on the season. Of his four misses overall, one was into the wind from 49 yards out. Two were due to horrifically bad snaps.

As a result, we can only pin one miss on him, and while it was within 40 yards, one miss almost always qualifies as being basically automatic. Cimaglia showed promise by hitting 10-of-13 field goals in 2018, but he didn’t get enough opportunities to show just how good he really was. That changed this season.

Against the UAB Blazers, Cimaglia hit a 53-yard field goal, the longest for a Vol kicker since Jeff Hall did it in the 1990s. That is incredibly impressive, and it shows just how reliable he is. Cimaglia’s reliability is why the Vols beat the Indiana Hoosiers, as their kicker missed an extra point and a field goal. He was that critical.