East Carolina Kicker Had A Brutal Start To The Season

East Carolina suffered one of the first heartbreaks of the college football season.

Pirates' kicker Owen Daffer had a tough start to his year with a pair of missed kicks in what was a near upset of No. 13 NC State.

The first was a missed PAT to tie the game with just under three minutes to play. The other one was... well, just watch it.

Oof.

Daffer had the chance to give ECU the lead in the waning seconds. Instead, he booted wide right. The Wolfpack held on to win 21-20.

That's a tough look, but in fairness to Daffer, he can bring it. Here he is drilling a 54-yard bomb to beat Navy last season.

Daffer is coming off of a First-Team All-ACC performance in 2021, but he'll need to rebound in a big way to repeat that.

It's just another example of why being a kicker is the most feast or famine position in sports. Hardly anyone pays much attention to you unless you come up clutch or fail spectacularly. You can just as easily be the hero as having a loss blamed entirely on you.

Daffer won't be the last kicker this happens to, but a pair of late missed kicks to blow a potential, massive upset could only mean one thing...

That's right. College football has been back for one week and we already have a new picture of a fan in disbelief that we can use.

It's going to be a good year. Enjoy the memes.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle