Griffith Has Been a Pleasant Surprise

Two games. Three field goals in three tries. Seven extra points in seven tries.

Tons of confidence.

“I was a little scared, a little skeptical before the first game,” Chris Griffith, the redshirt freshman walk-on kicker, admitted weeks later. “But now I’m 100% confident in myself.”

No wonder. He has not been severely tested yet--field goals of 33, 35 and 37 yards and nothing late in a close game--but Griffith has not missed a thing after opening the season as an unknown commodity.

“I’m very impressed with him right now,” Coach Bob Toledo said. “He’s doing a good job.”

Said Griffith: “If somebody would have said before the first game they thought this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have known what to say. If I knew that this was going to happen, I’d have felt real good, that’s for sure.”

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Starting defensive tackle Pete Holland will not start Saturday night against Fresno State and might not play at all because of a sore lower back, an injury of unknown cause. He woke up with it Monday morning, two days after the Ohio State game.

Anthony Fletcher will take Holland’s place in the opening lineup.