This is a rocky start on Rocky Top for new Tennessee football head coach Josh Heupel. Fans are already questioning the hire, and it’s pretty clear that Heupel has a brutal road ahead to try to rebuild the program.
However, news on Friday made it worse. Place kicker Brent Cimaglia announced he would be entering the transfer portal. Cimaglia was a three-year starter with the Vols and had kicked at least one field goal for them every year since 2017.
In 2019, Cimaglia earned All-SEC honors. He did not play in Tennessee football’s final two games of 2020 and still had a year of eligibility left due to the NCAA’s COVID exception rule this past season. Cimaglia announced his decision to enter the portal on Twitter.
Although he had a drop-off in 2020, going 5-of-9 on field goals and missing his first extra point, Cimaglia is still a valuable player. We found out when he opted out of the rest of the season in December that he had been battling injuries all year. He also revealed that on Twitter.
The assumption was that once Cimaglia got healthy, he would return to his old ways. Before his final game with the Vols, against the Florida Gators, he had never missed an extra point in his career, and he had made a majority of his field goals beyond 40 and 50 yards each.
Taking that into account, his departure is a major early blow to Heupel. The Vols are going to have numerous issues next year as it is. Heupel could use an elite field goal kicker, assuming he’s healthy, to give him an edge.
Without Cimaglia, Heupel will need his offense to take off maybe earlier than expected. Given the fact that nobody thinks the defense will do anything next year for Rocky Top, place kicking could be a huge advantage.
Then again, maybe Heupel’s offense was always predicated on scoring lots of touchdowns anyway. If the Vols are locked in tons of shootouts, field goals could be costly no matter what. That’s possibly why Cimaglia transferred to begin with. Still, his reliability on long kicks those times a drive might fail and on extra points could be necessary next year.
During his All-SEC campaign, Cimaglia was 16-of-20 on field goals. More importantly, he was nearly automatic inside 40 yards, going 12-of-14 and a perfect 5-of-5 inside 30 yards. His two misses were both due to bad snaps. He also went 2-of-2 from beyond 50 yards and nailed a 53-yarder against the UAB Blazers, the longest for a UT kicker since Jeff Hall in 1995.
Even as a sophomore, Cimaglia was 10-of-13 and only missed one kick inside 40 yards. In his first attempt ever, he made a 51-yard field goal in the first half at the Florida Gators in 2017. He was a perfect 6-of-6 inside 40 yards that year and wasn’t even the starter.
Simply put, the 6’0″ 210-pound native of Nashville, Tenn. who went to Fred J. Page High School in Franklin, Tenn. is an elite kicker when healthy. Without him, Tennessee football will likely turn to Toby Wilson, who kicked extra points for them in their final two games. Marshall Ware and punter Paxton Brooks could also be in the imx as well.