BATON ROUGE – Colby Delahoussaye continues accomplishing improbable feats.
The sophomore from New Iberia has made 18 of 19 field-goal attempts, and he most recently drilled a 50-yard game-winner in LSU’s 30-27 victory at Florida.
Delahoussaye received more than 70 text messages immediately after the game. He slept little Saturday night, woke up early for church Sunday morning, then received more texts and calls.
“It was a lot,” a smiling Delhoussaye said this week.
Delahoussaye has made 94.7 of his attempts. That’s second nationally among active college kickers. And his only miss, a 31-yarder last season against Furman, came when he had an injured groin.
“He’s a real focused person,” Dwayne Delahoussaye said in explaining the accuracy.
Said Colby: “When I get on the field, it’s almost like everything just clears.”
Before Colby knocked in his game-winner, he had to win the kicking job last fall camp as a walk-on redshirt freshman. Before he chose LSU over a handful of scholarship offers, Colby had to give up his one, true love: soccer.
Colby began playing soccer at an early age. Dwayne remembers him kicking a ball as early as age 2 or 3.
Colby was a natural at soccer, and his favorite player — to this day — is Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo. Colby played right defender his first three years at New Iberia High, breaking the single-season assist record his freshman season, then re-setting it as a sophomore and junior.
On TV Saturday night, Dwayne saw a man in Gainesville, Florida — a far cry from the boy who used to kick a soccer ball, barefoot, so hard inside the house that his mother ran him out to the yard.
“Grown men were crying,” Dwayne said.