Midweek Debate: Is it time to move on from Tristan Vizcaino?

Warning: Hot takes ahead.

Have you lost faith in Husky placekicker Tristan Vizcaino? I had very little confidence entering the season, only to have him win me over when he hit 3-for-3 including a 42-yarder in the Rutgers game.

Since then, Vizcaino has not made a field goal longer than 25 yards and has missed (badly) on a pair of extra points in the last two games. He has missed three of his last four field goal attempts and quite frankly, I am freaking out.

None of the field goal attempts have been terribly important in terms of deciding a game, but the last miss in the Colorado game came shortly after CU drilled a long field goal to cut the UW lead to a single touchdown. The Dawgs put together a nice drive to answer that score, only to have Vizcaino push a 41-yarder wide right. It barely missed. Do you get two points for one that barely misses? No? Then how about drilling it closer to the middle.

Obviously Chris Petersen is going to put the guy out there who he thinks has the best chance to make the kick. Right now that player is Vizcaino. Or at least it was entering Saturday. We have to assume that Tristan is the best kicker on the team, and has proven that in practice day in and day out. Petersen was asked about the kicking situation and said that the team needs to get their senior kicker “back into a groove.” He also added that “competition is always ongoing” when asked if there could be an opportunity for redshirt freshman Van Soderberg to get a crack at field goal duties.

Yeah, I know; we’re talking ‘bout kickers. Fact of the matter is, the Huskies played a really good game last week and there was exactly ONE glaring issue.

Do we (1) run Vizcaino out there and hope he can get his shit together and not risk further crushing his confidence or (2) would you like to see if the freshman Soderberg has ice-water in his veins and shines brightest when it really counts?