While he didn’t even start playing football until his sophomore year of high school, it took one look from TJ Albert to realize what he had in Lucas Carneiro.
Carneiro, a junior from North Carolina, was a soccer player when his high school career at Community School of Davidson began. He came out to practice one day eager to try his hand at placekicking. To say he passed the test would be an understatement, according to his head coach Albert.
“He came up and basically was like, ‘Hey, I’d like to try and do this,” Albert said. “And he kicked one ball off the tee and we were like, ‘OK, son, you might not be playing soccer any more.’ It was that fast that we realized this kid’s got a cannon.”
Carneiro started his collegiate career at Western Kentucky after flying under the radar at Community School of Davidson. He did not miss an extra point in his high school career, Albert said, and had so many touchbacks as a senior that opposing coaches used to joke that they never practiced kickoff returns when playing the Spartans.
Following a Sugar Bowl performance for the ages, Carneiro isn’t flying under the radar any longer.
Carneiro, now a star at Ole Miss, hit three field goals in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals against No. 3 Georgia – a 56-yarder, a 55-yarder and the game-winning 47-yarder – leading the No. 6 Rebels past the Bulldogs 39-34 and into the CFP semifinals at the Fiesta Bowl against Miami.
“When we had gotten the ball back, I was just warming in the net. It could come down to this, and I’m just going to stay calm,” Carneiro said at a press conference earlier this week. “Then when I got on the field, I have to stay true to myself and do what I do. When I hit that ball and I saw it was going in, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m out’ and went and celebrated with the guys. It was awesome.”
Because of the size of Community School of Davidson – it has a K-12 enrollment of less than 1,600 total, per US News and World Report – Carneiro wasn’t as highly sought after as Albert firmly believes he should have been. Albert admittedly prefers “not to kick field goals a lot” in favor of more prolific opportunities, so Carneiro didn’t have a ton of opportunities for clutch kicks. But there were a few things that stuck out to Albert: the touchbacks and perfect accuracy on PATs. And then there was what he regularly did at the end of practices, where he would venture out to 50 yards and beyond simply because he could. Albert swears he has a video of a high school aged Carneiro hitting a 60-yarder.
“I used to tell him all the time when he was in high school, ‘You’ll kick on Sundays.’ … I thought that early on,” Albert said.
Carneiro made the most of his opportunity at Western Kentucky, becoming a Lou Groza Award semifinalist as a sophomore while hitting 27 of 31 field goals as the Hilltoppers’ starting kicker. He has been just as good in Oxford, hitting 27 of 30 kicks this season. He is a whopping 9 of 10 on kicks of 50 or more yards in his college career, including his two in the Sugar Bowl.
“Lucas is a stud. He’s the best kicker I ever seen, ever played with. He’s got ice in his veins,” Ole Miss senior quarterback Trinidad Chambliss said. “ … We have all our trust and faith in Lucas when it comes to a situation like that. We don’t doubt him.”
There was never a doubt in Albert’s mind that the go-ahead boot attempt in the Sugar Bowl was going through the uprights. He’s always had ice water in his veins. Never too high, never too low. Joking on the sidelines rather than by himself.
“At no point was I like, ‘He might miss this.’ I expect him to make it, no different than when he was 18 years old as a senior kicking an extra point,” Albert said. “ … That’s who he is.”
As good as a kicker as Carneiro is on the field, Albert is adamant he’s an even more impressive person off of it. Carneiro’s younger brother, Liam, is a kicker at Community School of Davidson. Just days after hitting the kick of his life, Albert called Carneiro to make sure it was OK with him to chat with reporters. Carneiro, who was in Walmart, chuckled and gave his blessing, noting it would be good for his brother’s college prospects.
“That’s the kid’s mentality, right?” Albert said. “ … He’s just a great kid, man. I couldn’t say enough positive things about him, his brother and his entire family.”
Ole Miss hires Patrick Toney as defensive coordinator
Ole Miss announced the hiring of Patrick Toney as its defensive coordinator Wednesday. Toney, who was most recently the defensive backs coach for the Arizona Cardinals, was the co-defensive coordinator at Florida in 2022. Toney worked with Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding at UTSA as safeties coach when Golding was the defensive coordinator. The two also worked together at Southeastern Louisiana.
In a press conference in the weeks after he was named head coach, Golding told reporters he would still be the defensive play caller and that co-defensive coordinator/secondary coach Bryan Brown would take a bigger role in game planning.
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