The Business of College Football: LSU Does Not Renew Senior Kicker Trent Domingue’s Scholarship
Written by Ryan Wright
Twitter: @HogManInLA
If anyone doubts the cutthroat nature of college football, one of the newest case and point examples is LSU parting ways with senior kicker Trent Domingue just weeks away before fall camp opens for the 2016 season.
On Wednesday, Domingue took to Twitter announcing his scholarship for his senior year was not renewed by LSU thus he was in the process of transferring. The news regarding the transfer of the Mandeville area native was on one hand shocking but then again not surprising in the current culture of college football.
The shocking part comes after Domingue was a semifinalist for the 2015 Lou Groza Award, the award for the top kicker in college football. Domingue pretty much steamrolled through his junior season connecting on 11 of 12 field goal attempts with a long of 45 (vs. Eastern Michigan) while hitting 49 of 50 PATs on the year before the wheels came off during LSU’s final regular season game against Texas A&M (won 19-7). The Louisiana native connected on 2 of 5 attempts verses the Aggies hitting a long of 38 but missed on distances of 25, 50, and 46 yards. The three missed field goals seemed to have cost Domingue a shot at the Lou Groza finals and more importantly his LSU scholarship. Of the three misses, only one of them, the 25-yard attempt, was truly noteworthy for a collegiate kicker.
Reading between the lines, LSU signed Arizona kicker Connor Culp as part of the 2016 class. Culp has already received the backing of head coach Les Miles publicly thus must have already impressed the staff with his leg and accuracy this summer. Where Domingue’s range ends around 45 yards, Culp, a five-star kicker out of Desert Vista High School, has hit 70-yard field goal attempts in practice at the high school level.
Whether LSU would ever trot Culp out for a 65- to 70-yard field goal attempt is debatable, unless an absolute necessity or a “give it a try” shot at three points before halftime. On paper, Culp gives LSU a little more flexibility in the offense able to extend potential points from a stalled drive at the 28-yard line to maybe the 38-yard line.
The Tigers should have Cameron Gamble back to handle kickoff duties after he took care of 43 of 75 kicks during the 2015 campaign leaving everything status quo, unless Culp wins out there too. LSU has a backup field goal kicker in Colby Delahoussaye. Delahoussaye (walk-on) has starting experience with the Tigers serving as the team’s primary kicker in 2013-14 before losing the job to Domingue in 2015. Delahoussaye is 24 of 29 on his career setting a team record hitting his first nine attempts to start his career.
One way or another, LSU is covered but what about Domingue?
The troubling factor, and something that should scare all players along with their parents, is the treatment Domingue is receiving from LSU. Between the fans, alumni, boosters, various school administrators, and the coaching staffs, college football has increasingly become a “what have you done for me lately” affair. Domingue did not cost LSU a game last year and for much of the season was one of the top kickers in the nation, but that was not enough. Even with one bad game on his resume, in his first year of full-time kicking duties, Domingue was on the 2016 Lou Groza Award Preseason Watch List prepping for his senior season but is now searching for a new team to finish out his collegiate career.
Domingue redshirted as a freshman thus should have a diploma in hand allowing him to transfer to any Division-I school in the nation in need without having to sit out a season due to NCAA rules. Domingue could still end up being a Lou Groza Award finalist at his new school having the last laugh against Les Miles and company, but why has his situation come to this? Miles is showing no love for a senior who has produced on the field and by all accounts has stayed out of trouble being an asset not a hindrance – but doing your job well is seemingly just not good enough anymore.
Photo credit: nola.com; No. 14 Trent Domingue waves to LSU fans after topping Florida.