Byron Bennett's life after the infamous miss

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Lost and found: Nebraska kicker Byron Bennett's life after the infamous miss

By Dirk Chatelain / World-Herald staff writer POSTED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2016 12:00 AM | UPDATED: 4:42 AM

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Every day after Husker practice, Bennett’s snapper moved to long range and crafted an imaginary scene for him. “OK, Byron, this is for the national championship.” Now they were here. This was the real thing.

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I always felt bad for Bennett. We played a full sixty minutes. And like any game there were at least a dozen lost opportunities. But people only remember the missed field goal of the final play.

Great article by Dirk.

 
It is weird because sometimes I think that those guys that played for the Huskers are always around the program or Lincoln or Omaha...but I guess just like high school you kind of move on.

 
I'm glad Bennett had graduated when he missed the Orange Bowl FG. It would have been impossible for him to come back to campus and hear the jeers of jacka$$ students.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
I'm glad Bennett had graduated when he missed the Orange Bowl FG. It would have been impossible for him to come back to campus and hear the jeers of jacka$$ students.
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True. But I'll bet that '95 championship would have exorcised some of his demons. And he wouldn't be remembered as the guy who missed the FG the year before.

 
NUance said:
ColoradoHusk said:
I'm glad Bennett had graduated when he missed the Orange Bowl FG. It would have been impossible for him to come back to campus and hear the jeers of jacka$$ students.
Click to expand...
True. But I'll bet that '95 championship would have exorcised some of his demons. And he wouldn't be remembered as the guy who missed the FG the year before.
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Or he's haunted by the missed kick and is reminded about it every day by idiotic fans and he never becomes an effective kicker again. I think it worked out best for him and NU. NU was able to move forward with Seiler and Erstad the next year.
 
ColoradoHusk said:
NUance said:
ColoradoHusk said:
I'm glad Bennett had graduated when he missed the Orange Bowl FG. It would have been impossible for him to come back to campus and hear the jeers of jacka$$ students.
Click to expand...
True. But I'll bet that '95 championship would have exorcised some of his demons. And he wouldn't be remembered as the guy who missed the FG the year before.
Click to expand...
Or he's haunted by the missed kick and is reminded about it every day by idiotic fans and he never becomes an effective kicker again. I think it worked out best for him and NU. NU was able to move forward with Seiler and Erstad the next year.
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Donchya mean Kris Brown?
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NUance said:
ColoradoHusk said:
NUance said:
ColoradoHusk said:
I'm glad Bennett had graduated when he missed the Orange Bowl FG. It would have been impossible for him to come back to campus and hear the jeers of jacka$$ students.
Click to expand...
True. But I'll bet that '95 championship would have exorcised some of his demons. And he wouldn't be remembered as the guy who missed the FG the year before.
Click to expand...
Or he's haunted by the missed kick and is reminded about it every day by idiotic fans and he never becomes an effective kicker again. I think it worked out best for him and NU. NU was able to move forward with Seiler and Erstad the next year.
Click to expand...
Donchya mean Kris Brown?
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No, Seiler. Kris Brown didn't arrive until 95.
 
suh_fan93 said:
I was never pissed at Bennett for missing that fg and I'll never forget that game.
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I remember watching that game with my friends in high school. We couldn't believe NU was hanging in there in the first half. We spotted a friend of ours who was holding the cords to Charlie McBride's headset. He was too busy watching the game and kinda got yelled at for not staying with Charlie. We were heartbroken at the end of the game and wondered if NU was ever gonna win the big one. Little did we know that the loss was going to be the catalyst to the last 4 seasons under Osborne.
 
Why are we crafting some fantasy about "idiot fans" heckling Byron Bennett? Nobody I've ever talked to thought he was to blame for missing that field goal. That's literally a narrative I've never heard.

Every discussion about that game centers around the personal foul, the FSU fumble the refs missed, or how that was the last of seven straight bowl games Osborne lost and how the team changed after that.

Almost everyone talks about that game as "should have won," not "we lost because of the kicker."

 
Yes, the game shouldn't have come down to a last second FG. From the breaks that FSU got, and the missed opportunities from NU, Bennett wasn't the "reason" NU lost the game. But, the fact is that he badly missed a last second FG that would have given NU a national championship.

I think that would have been very hard to live with, especially if he were to stay in Lincoln.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Yes, the game shouldn't have come down to a last second FG. From the breaks that FSU got, and the missed opportunities from NU, Bennett wasn't the "reason" NU lost the game. But, the fact is that he badly missed a last second FG that would have given NU a national championship.

I think that would have been very hard to live with, especially if he were to stay in Lincoln.
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He could have opened a bar and named it Wide Left

 
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