One Shot: Elliott Fry driven by pursuit of perfection

It still gnaws.

“I wish I had that one back,” South Carolina’s Elliott Fry said. “It’s a really far kick but I didn’t hit it the way I wanted to.”

Never mind that the missed kick – a 58-yarder against Tennessee that would have sent the game to double overtime – is 11 yards longer than Fry’s career-long and was hit exactly once by any other kicker in FBS last year. The ball was there and it meant the Gamecocks’ last chance to keep the game going. And Fry is the guy depended on to make that kick and a lot of others.

Nobody blamed Fry for missing, which settled a 45-42 overtime loss to the Volunteers. The Gamecocks’ holey defense, like it was in two other mind-numbing losses in 2014, was responsible.

Fry still felt it. The way he saw it, kickers make kicks, not just attempt them.

“You expect to make every kick,” he said. “That game, 58 is a pretty far field goal, and I knew that. But that was the only chance we had to get back in it.”

It’s the mentality he takes toward his job, one he earned as a true freshman after coming to USC as an unknown walk-on from Texas. His story is a fun and inspiring one – a Type I diabetic since age 7, Fry manages to control the disease and play major college football, and he adds a lot of character to the Gamecocks. He and Mason Zandi’s impersonation of a British soccer announcer during the team’s media day would win a prize on any stage. First prize.

The slim build (Fry is listed at 164 pounds, which most think he wouldn’t be if he swallowed a weight bench, and the outsized personality hide a thirsty desire to succeed. Every miss is like the ball is being drilled at him by his own leg at four times the speed.

That’s where “One Shot” spawned.

The words are tattooed on Fry’s left forearm. It’s what he’s always thinking of any time he nods his head to his holder, that he’s ready for the snap. One Shot to deliver the next shot, One Shot for glory.

“Quarterbacks may be 60 percent passing, that’s really good. But that’s terrible for a kicker,” Fry explained. “A quarterback misses a throw here or there, a linebacker misses a tackle here or there, it doesn’t really matter too much. But when you miss as a kicker, you really are defined by missing and that really stands out in games.”

USC loves its junior kicker. Coach Steve Spurrier thinks he’s one of the best in the country and if Fry keeps on his current pace – with 209 points and nearly two full seasons to go, he should easily shatter career leading scorer Collin Mackie’s mark of 330 – he’ll go down as the most prolific in school history.

He’s hit his share of big kicks thus far. While none have been true game-winners, he counts his 40-yarder against Missouri in 2013 as his favorite – and it technically was the game-winner, although the win wasn’t clinched until the Tigers missed their field goal that would have sent the game to triple overtime.

Fry wants another, and another, and another. One Shot has to be accomplished for Every Shot.

“I’ve seen the record in the stadium a couple of times ... you can’t help but think about it,” he said of Mackie’s mark. “That’d be pretty cool, I guess. But as a kicker, you don’t really need to be focused on a record. I’ve got to make every kick.”