ight Riders v St Kitts & Nevis Patriots game in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I will be attending right before my wife and I go on a

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Floridas kicking situation was the worst in the Southeastern Conference last season and among the least productive in the country.It was so inadequate that coach Jim McElwain held open tryouts -- in the middle of the season.After two more failed field goal attempts in the regular-season finale against rival Florida State, McElwain declared well get a kicker. And well get a good one.The 25th-ranked Gators may have gotten the best one available.Eddy Pineiro, a sophomore who attended ASA Community College in Miami last season but didnt play football, is expected to dramatically improve Floridas field-goal fortunes this fall. His first opportunity to kick in front of 90,000 will happen Saturday against UMass.Im excited, said Pineiro, who has made a number of 70-yard-plus kicks and put them on YouTube. I think people exaggerate (the pressure). But if you work on the same thing every single day, why cant you do it in a game? ... You should be able to put a blindfold on and kick it because its the same kick every single time. Its muscle memory.Pineiro makes it sound easy: see ball, kick ball.But Florida learned last season just how difficult a task kicking can be.The Gators missed five extra points and 10 field goals in 2015. They made just 7 of 17 field goals, a 41.2 percent success rate that ranked 127th out of 128 teams in the nation. McElwain used three different kickers, including a dental student added to the roster late in the year, but nothing fixed the problem.Seeing them go through those kicking struggles last year was pretty depressing, Pineiro said.McElwain tried just about everything while experienced junior Austin Hardin, who ended up making 5 of 14 attempts, kept struggling. He turned to Jorge Powell, but the walk-on injured a knee trying to make a tackle against LSU and missed the final seven games. That prompted McElwain to open things up to Floridas student body.More than 200 students responded to the open call, and dental student Neil MacInnes won the multistage kicking competition. Still, McElwain stuck with Hardin -- the Gators ended up going for it on fourth down 27 times -- while putting the full recruiting press on Pineiro.Pineiro eventually de-committed from Alabama and enrolled at Florida in January.Hes essentially been Floridas kicker since, even though hes never kicked in a game. Pineiro was a standout soccer player at Miami Sunset High School, so his first real action came in Floridas spring game, where he made all five extra points and three lengthy field goals.I didnt think people were going to scream out my name after an extra point, so that was pretty interesting, said Pineiro, who will wear No. 15, made famous in Gainesville by Tim Tebow.Pineiro wasnt perfect: He hit from 52, 46 and 56 yards, and missed from 53 and 52. He also had nine touchbacks on 10 kickoffs, so McElwain was clearly testing him.The coach hasnt stopped, either.McElwain challenges Pineiro at nearly every practice.Lately hes been putting the whole team around me while Im kicking my field goal, just screaming in my ear, throwing water in my face, trying to get me off-balance and stuff, Pineiro said. So far, Im like 4-for-4 on those, whatever you want to call them, pressure kicks. So hes happy about that.McElwain will be even happier if Pineiro makes them in games, something the Gators rarely did last season.I dont want to sit here and put all these high expectations on him, McElwain said. I mean, the guy hasnt kicked in a game yet, right? And yet all of a sudden, were ready to say this guy is the Golden Toe Award or whatever.At the same time, I do know this: He has the talent to do it, and I love the way he goes about his work.---AP college football website: www.collegefootball.ap.orgMalik Allen Jersey Signed . 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Three minutes after the break, a simple through pass from Paulinho freed Oscar and the Chelsea star rounded goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong to extend Brazils lead.Im an American baseball and football fan, and I love cricket.There are those around the world who believe that I dont exist, and I may be the only one - based on my attempts at outreach on social media sites - but I do in fact exist.At the moment, I am bingeing on the Caribbean Premier League. I can stream the entire league for a few bucks, and I have taken full advantage of the offer.A little background. I grew up in upstate New York, and my introduction to sports was the New York Mets of Tom Seaver, Jon Matlack, Jerry Koosman and Buddy Harrelson. My earliest sports memory was Buddy getting into a fight with Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds at second base during the 1973 National League Championship Series, which the Mets won in five games. My mom, dad and grandmother had all followed the Brooklyn Dodgers until the Dodgers unceremoniously decamped to California, and the excitement in my house around the Mets improbable run to the pennant in 73 hooked me onto baseball. I went on to play Little League, Babe Ruth League, high school baseball and American Legion baseball until I stopped being able to make contact with the increasingly blurry fastballs thrown at me, and stopped being able to track the hard-hit line drives in the outfield. I am still a Mets fan 40-something years later. I thrilled to the great 1986 World Series championship team when I was in college, and suffered through all the missed opportunities since, including last season.I am also a huge NFL fan, and the New England Patriots have always been my team. I sign up for NFL Sunday Ticket every season, so I can watch all 16 of the Patriots regular season games. The Patriots have rewarded my fan investment handsomely these days with four Super Bowl titles and two other appearances in the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era, albeit with plenty of controversy.My insatiable appetite for sports has taken my in many other directions. Tiger Woods run in the PGA was an obsession, and Im a big fan of Michelle Wie in the LPGA. I check in with the English Premier League on weekend mornings, and I follow the USAs mens and womens national teams in international soccer tournaments. Ive tried and failed to follow the NHL and the NBA, but Ill still watch a hockey or basketball game if theres nothing else on.I had never considered cricket as a sport to follow until I started watching The Thick Of It online, where the shenanigans in the British government often took a backk seat to whatever Test match was on the radio; and then, especially, the podcast The Bugle with ESPNcricinfos own Andy Zaltzman.ddddddddddddOn one episode, Andy was paying more attention to the Ashes than he was to whatever John Oliver was saying. After I heard that, I needed to see what was so engrossing.My first Ashes was the 2010-11 edition in Australia. It took about three matches to understand the rules and generally what was happening, but somewhere during the Perth match I became enthralled. Australia had dropped the second match badly, after a first-match draw, but battled back and destroyed England out west using local knowledge of the surface. I was intrigued that the results could be so drastically different in different locations, and felt compelled to tune in to see if England would rebound to win the series or if Australia could find a way to sweep the final two matches. I spent the Christmas holiday watching the fourth and fifth tests. I was now a full-on cricket fan.Since 2010, Ive watched two World Cups, two World T20s, three more Ashes series, and countless other matches that were available on WatchESPN. Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkars Cricket All-Stars came to Houston - where I live - last November and, of course, I was travelling that week and had to miss it. Finally, though, Im going to see a professional game live.I bought tickets to the Trinbago Knight Riders v St Kitts & Nevis Patriots game in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I will be attending right before my wife and I go on a cruise. Ive been watching every game I can of the CPL T20 season to familiarise myself with the teams and players. I am looking forward to the constant drumming, costumes, dancing, Caribbean food and drink, and hard hits that I am seeing in the games so far. About the only regret I will have is that I didnt get tickets to the Jamaica Tallawahs game to watch #UniverseBoss himself, Chris Gayle. I watched his methodical destruction of Trinbago this week, and my respect for his batting ability is right up there with my respect for Tom Bradys quarterbacking and Yoenis Céspedes all-around play.I hope to keep watching the tournament and then write about my experience at the Florida match. Stay tuned.Want to be featured on Inbox? Send your articles to us here, with Inbox in the subject line. ' ' '