Alabama Football: 3 position battles to watch before 2020 season

3. Kicker

For a decade strong now, there has been one part of the game that Nick Saban has yet to figure out. This has been the greatest ten-plus year run we’ve ever seen a program go on, and it has also featured maybe the most inconsistent kicking game we’ve seen.

In 2019, Joseph Bulovas joined the ranks of Cade Foster and Adam Griffith with a field goal miss that would go down in Alabama history for all the wrong reasons. With a chance to tie the game at 48 and two minutes remaining, he doinked a 30-yard attempt off the left upright.

The man he’ll be competing for the job with has also seen his share of misfortune. On Sept. 21 last year, against Southern Miss, Will Reichard suffered a hip flexor injury when, on a kickoff, he kicked the tee.

At this point, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the Tide have their own version of Bill Gramatica.

Both kickers have hit their field goals at subpar percentages. Bulovas has hit at a 75.9 percent rate, going 22-of-29 in the last two seasons. Reichard has taken just seven field goal attempts, but missing three of those, he’s hitting at just a 57.1 percent.

Bulovas has the edge in this battle, but frankly, neither player inspires a great deal of confidence.