Trakas’ Game is Trying, And Emotional, to Boot

The spotlight in Saturday’s nationally televised Miami-San Diego State game was supposed to be reserved for two of the nation’s top gunslingers, Craig Erickson and Dan McGwire.

Erickson and McGwire didn’t disappoint. They combined to throw for 607 yards and four touchdown passes in Miami’s 30-28 victory at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

But Erickson and McGwire had to step aside for awhile in the fourth quarter--eight minutes and 25 seconds to be exact--while an unsuspecting 5-8, 180-pound kicker from Patrick Henry High took center stage.

It was the kind of show Andy Trakas normally would love to have headlined. All year he had been kicking his little heart out in obscurity. He had made all 51 of his extra points and connected on 16 of 21 field goals, including his last 11 coming into Saturday’s game. But most of his 99 points were lost in blowouts one way or another.

Saturday started out the same way. Trakas kicked field goals of 25 and 43 yards in the first half to extend his streak to 13, but SDSU still trailed 30-20 heading into the fourth quarter.

But a funny thing happened in the fourth quarter, Trakas found himself in the middle of a football game.

And the coach kept calling his name. His odyssey began with 14:04 left in the game with a 38-yarder that went wide right. It continued 2 1/2 minutes later with a 47-yarder that barely missed left. And the show mercifully ended with a 54-yard attempt that had the distance, but was wide left.

By the time Trakas was through, SDSU was still behind, 30-20, with 5:39 left in the fourth quarter. The Aztecs rallied to score one more touchdown, but the damage had been done.

And nobody felt worse about it than Trakas.

“That stuff happens, but it’s kind of sad it happened in a game like this,” Trakas said. “I let down the seniors. It was a bad learning experience.

“Sometimes you’re on top of the world in this business and other times you’re where I am. They say bad things come in threes. I guess that was true today.”

Trakas said he had a day that he could have never envisioned when he awoke Saturday.

“I’ve never had a chance to kick five field goals before,” he said. “But I was a factor today and I just had to be ready for it.”

All three misses were painful, but Trakas said only the first one felt like it was wide.

“The first one was my fault,” he said. “I just didn’t get the right footing and missed it.”

But Trakas said the 47-yarder could have gone either way.

“I thought the second one was good,” he said. “It was a 50-50 call, but you can’t sing sad songs now.”

The final attempt almost didn’t happen. With fourth and 10 on Miami’s 36, Trakas trotted onto the field, but SDSU Coach Al Luginbill called the last of his timeouts, which he could have desperately used in the last minute, and Trakas was summoned to the sidelines.

But after Luginbill thought about it for a minute, Trakas reappeared.

Luginbill’s thinking on attempting a 54-yarder 10 points down with 5:39 left, with a kicker who had a missed his last two field goals:

“We needed points,” Luginbill said. “He had just (barely) missed previously. I thought the percentages would be with us. He’s capable of kicking it.”

Trakas thought he was more than capable.

“I feel good kicking from 60 yards,” he said. “I’d like to thank Coach Luginbill for having the faith in me. I’m just sorry I let him down.”

But Trakas is only a sophomore and he realizes he will have many more opportunities to decide games.

“It’s a sad way to end the season, and I feel like I really let the team down,” he said. ‘But I just have to look forward to next year. It’s all I can do now.”