Kicker McAfee legs it out for Mountaineers

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Pat McAfee looks and talks way more like a surfer dude than West Virginia's freshman kicker.

His reaction when he learned he just had been named Big East special teams player of the week?

"I saw it on the computer and I was just like, whoa, cool man, that's good stuff," he said.

McAfee, a former soccer and football standout at Plum, kicked a 40-yard field goal in the fourth quarter of West Virginia's 31-19 victory over Maryland last Saturday at Byrd Stadium.

Five of his six kickoffs resulted in touchbacks, and he almost became a bigger hero on the kickoff that was brought back. McAfee almost had to attempt a touchdown-saving tackle on a 57-yard kickoff runback by Maryland's Jo Jo Walker.

"I had to get rough and tough. I almost had to flex my muscles," McAfee said. "I almost had to get down and dirty."

"I was just going to jump on and go for the ride, but I'm a little heavier kicker, so I don't think he'd be able to carry me that far," he said.

Thankfully, the Mountaineers' kick coverage squad dragged Walker down about 10 yards from where McAfee was starting to dance around.

"The whole team jumped on top of his back and I thought, thank God," McAfee said. "I was like, thank you, thank you kickoff team."

West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said he was most impressed with McAfee's final kickoff, a booming drive deep in the end zone that wasn't brought out with 2:18 remaining.

"That kickoff was huge," Rodriguez said. "I'm used to seeing him kick them five yards deep in the end zone, and at the time we needed it in the Maryland game, he did that.

"He's got an extremely strong leg and he's got a good personality," the coach said. "He's fun, but he's also team oriented and that helps relax him. And it helps relax me when we go into crunch time and you see he's just kind of happy-go-lucky with it."

Rodriguez called his young kicker a weapon. McAfee routinely kicks 55-yard field goals in practice.

"You can judge if a guy is struggling with it," Rodriguez said. "With Pat, it's usually a matter of accuracy, not distance. I think he's going to keep getting better. Even though he seems happy-go-lucky, he's pretty serious about his craft."

While he hasn't been called on to win a game with a late field goal yet, McAfee is 10 for 10 on extra points and has withstood the pressure of two televised road games at Syracuse and Maryland.

He missed a 47-yard field goal attempt at Syracuse and misfired from 32 yards out against Wofford. Both times the ball sailed straight over the top of a goal post, leaving him with a 3-for-5 (60 percent) mark heading into the East Carolina game at noon Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium.

"I'm anxious to kick more so everybody will be like, OK, he's kicking well," McAfee said.

Rodriguez admits he doesn't try to get inside a kicker's head.

"I guess animated is a good description of Pat," Rodriguez said. "The guys like him. A lot of times people say kickers are different, anyway. He's not different in that way, I think he's happy where he's at, happy with what he's doing and it rubs off on people.

"He's going to have a lot of pressure kicks in his career, and he has the mentality I'm good enough to do this, and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen," he said.

West Virginia was the only major football program that recruited McAfee, a national Punt, Pass and Kick competition winner who also had the option to play soccer for Stanford, St. John's and a host of other schools.