Best foot forward

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004 | 10:22 a.m.

UNLV's Sergio Aguayo was among those watching on Labor Day weekend when Oregon State's Alexis Serna endured a placekicker's worst nightmare on national television.

It was Serna who missed three PATs in Oregon State's 22-21 loss at defending national co-champion LSU, including one that would have sent the game into a second overtime.

Serna had to live with that anguish for days as his misses were replayed constantly on sports television highlight shows and discussed in major national publications. And just as people were beginning to forget about the big misses, another college placekicker would miss a key kick to lose a game, forcing Serna to relive the misses all over again.

Aguayo, a redshirt freshman from San Jacinto, Calif., knew of Serna from his days as a placekicker at A.B. Miller High School in nearby Fontana. So he decided to send him an e-mail through Oregon State's Web site.

"I just told him to keep his head up and stuff like that," Aguayo said. "He responded and one thing led to another. Now we (e-mail) each other every day and he's become a good friend.

"It's kind of cool to have somebody who understands what you're going through. We have a close bond because I believe he and I are the only Hispanic kickers in Division I football."

Like Serna, Aguayo had to endure a few rough moments of his own earlier this year when he missed three of his first five field goal tries, including a 30-yarder just before halftime at Wisconsin that would have given the underdog Rebels a 3-2 lead. Instead, Badgers linebacker Reggie Cribbs leaped up high to block the kick and teammate Jim Leonhard scooped up the loose ball and raced 86 yards for a touchdown to give Wisconsin a 9-0 lead. The Rebels never recovered and dropped a hard-fought 18-3 decision to the Big Ten Conference leaders.

The good news is that both Serna and Aguayo have been sharing a lot more success through their e-mails since their slow starts.

Aguayo has quietly put together a streak of six consecutive field goals over the past five games. He also is still perfect on all 15 of his PATs.

Meanwhile, Serna bounced back to earn Pac-10 special teams player of the week honors this week after hitting all five of his field goal tries, including a 55-yarder, in Oregon State's 29-14 victory against Washington. He is a perfect 7-of-7 on field goals this year.

"He was really stoked," Aguayo said. "Just because he missed some PATs doesn't mean he isn't a good kicker. Now the spotlight is on him. At the beginning, everybody was down on him."

Aguayo credits his turnaround to being more relaxed and confident.

"I'm just going out and having fun now," he said. "I'm confident that I'm going to make every kick. Before I felt kind of rushed and everything had to be on time. I'm more confident with my surroundings and I just go out and kick it and have fun."

Aguayo said he subscribes to the theory that the kicker has to be the dumbest player on the team.

"If you miss a kick you just have to forget about it and move on," he said. "And if you make it you have to do the same thing. Every game you go into you have to think that you're zero for zero."

Although his college career has consisted of just seven games, Aguayo will be the most experienced kicker on the field when UNLV (2-5, 1-2) faces 9th-ranked Utah (6-0, 2-0) on Saturday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Utah placekicker Bryan Borreson, who attempted just two field goals this year and has missed four PATs because of a nagging groin injury, was replaced in the second half of last week's 46-16 trouncing by walk-on true freshman David Carroll, who had been ticketed to redshirt. Carroll made both of his PAT tries against the Tar Heels.

Although he obviously would love nothing better than to kick the winning field goal against the Utes, Aguayo said he will also be rooting for Carroll to do well.

"I'll be the veteran out there, I guess," Aguayo said. "But I root for the other kickers to do well. We're kind of our own group, you could say. When a kicker has a bad day, people don't like you. If you have a good day, they're your friends."

And these days Sergio Aguayo seems to have a lot more friends.

McCardell will be inducted into the UNLV Athletic Hall of Fame on Feb. 4 at the MGM Grand.

The trade to San Diego also means that McCardell will be reunited with his former UNLV head coach, Wayne Nunnely, who is the defensive line coach for the Chargers.