Andrew Ritter dakes a deep breath before kicking the game-winning field goal against LSU Saturday.
Photo by Tyler Jackson | The Daily Mississippian
Andrew Ritter couldn’t sleep at all Saturday night.
Normally when a kicker can’t sleep, it’s because he missed a kick that cost his team a game. Ritter almost had that moment. But he didn’t. Instead, the senior laid in bed thinking about his game-winning 41-yard field goal sailing through the uprights on the north end of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium that gave Ole Miss a 27-24 win over No. 6 LSU Saturday night.
“I didn’t sleep a lick,” Ritter said. “I laid in bed until about 4:30 a.m. I just couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
And how could he?
It’s the dream of every kicker in the country. Every one of them dreams of kicking a game-winner. Especially against a top-10 team. Especially against your rival. For Ritter, that dream became reality in the last few seconds of Saturday night’s game.
“It’s just been so surreal,” Ritter said. “I keep waiting to wake up from a dream. It’s been unbelievable. There’s been a lot of love shown to me and my family and our team. It’s just been incredible and a huge blessing.”
A blessing that was almost not even possible.
Ritter is a fifth-year senior, but this season is the first time he’s ever been responsible for place-kicking duties. Before that, he was strictly a kickoff specialist, a pretty good one in fact. But he wanted more. He wanted to be the field goal kicker for Ole Miss. It was all he ever wanted to do.
“I grew up an Ole Miss fan my entire life,” Ritter said. “I grew up in a family that was full of Rebels that really disliked Mississippi State and LSU.”
The Jackson native knew Ole Miss was where he wanted to go to college, and after a high school career at Jackson Academy that saw him hit four field goals of over 50 yards, including a 58-yarder, Ritter thought he was getting that chance.
However, Ritter spent his first three seasons in Oxford only kicking off. Ole Miss had senior Joshua Shene as the placekicker Ritter’s freshman season, and Bryson Rose took over the job after that.
Rose and Ritter had the same amount of eligibility left, and Rose didn’t appear like he was going to lose his job. Ritter’s hopes of kicking field goals on the collegiate level were over.
“It was tough because I wanted to be doing it so bad,” Ritter said. “But you just never know what the Lord has in store for you.”
Before Ritter’s senior season, Ole Miss hired Hugh Freeze as their new head coach. Freeze knew he had two talented kickers in Rose and Ritter on his roster and thought of a plan to keep one of them around for another year.
Freeze approached Ritter about the idea of redshirting his senior season so that he could come back and fulfill that dream of being the field goal kicker for Ole Miss.
The decision was a no-brainer for Ritter, who wanted to fulfill that dream as well as enter Ole Miss’ MBA program. He was back for a fifth year in Oxford, and this time, he got to kick field goals.
It didn’t take long for Ritter to make the first field goal of his career, as he booted a 30-yarder less than five minutes into the season-opening win against Vanderbilt on Aug. 29.
Now, he’s made 9 of 12 field goal attempts, and none have been bigger than his last.
Ole Miss had the ball on their own 15-yard line in a tie ball game with 3:15 to play. They picked up two critical third downs on the drive. They worked the clock down to six seconds before LSU head coach Les Miles used his final timeout.
It was fourth-and-four for Ole Miss. The game was placed on the right foot of Ritter, the same foot that had a 29-yard field goal attempt blocked on the previous Ole Miss possession.
This time, it was Ritter’s moment.
“I’ve been confident in my ability, I’ve had good weeks at practice and I just try to remain confident,” Ritter said. “When I go out there, I’m always nervous. It doesn’t matter if it’s a long field goal or an extra point, but I think that’s good because it keeps me focused on the task and focus on my fundamentals. I’ve been pretty fortunate to be pretty consistent.
“In my eyes, I had that one blocked, so that’s not consistent enough. I have to be better. But I was glad to have an opportunity to make up for it.”
Ritter made up for it all right. He capped the 14-play drive with a strike that split the uprights and gave Ritter, Freeze and the Rebels the upset win.
“It was the ultimate high I’ve ever experienced in my athletic career,” Ritter said. “Just to know that I came through for my team and these fans is the best feeling in the world. I knew they were counting on me, and it was my job. They had done their job to put us in a position to win the ballgame, so I had to go out there and do mine.
“Just to be able to come through for all those guys that I love was just awesome.”
When the ball sailed through and the referees signaled it was good, there was pandemonium at Vaught-Hemingway. Fans were yelling, pompoms were waving, drinks were flying, the Ole Miss sideline was going crazy, and in the midst of all that, Ritter was just running around soaking it all in.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said as he laughed. “You always think about what you’re going to do after you make a kick like that, but I didn’t know what to do. I just took off running. The first person I saw was Mike Marry, so I just jumped on top of him. It was awesome.”
It was awesome for Ritter. It was awesome for Freeze. It was awesome for every player and coach Ole Miss has. It was awesome for every Rebel fan in the stadium that night and the thousands more watching from home. But it was even more than that for two people.
George and Betsy Ritter are Andrew’s parents and have supported him through all the ups and downs. They are both Ole Miss graduates like their son, and when they all were able to see each other following the game, it was a reunion none of them will ever forget.
“I’ve never seen them so happy my entire life,” Ritter said. “My mom was crying, and my dad was jumping up and down.”
It’s hard not to be happy for a story like that. After five years of waiting and thousands of kicked balls at practice, Ritter got his moment. And it was a kick of a lifetime.
“Oh my gosh, it makes everything I’ve ever done worth it,” Ritter said. “Every sprint, every up down, every year waiting to have this opportunity, sitting out last year, it makes everything worth it. It’s just incredible how it all worked out.”
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