Former coach Rich Brooks used to have nightmares about who would replace former Kentucky punter and current NFL player Tim Masthay on kickoffs.

Brooks, his staff and his future successor, Joker Phillips, realized the need to get a big-time kicker to boost the special-teams game, and they did so by heavily recruiting and eventually signing one of the top kickers in the nation in Joe Mansour.

But in the meantime, before Mansour or any other kicker could get to campus, Brooks and the coaching staff didn’t have much of an option in covering up a glaring and potentially dangerous weakness. That was until an unlikely prize in the form of Craig McIntosh showed up on Kentucky’s doorstep.

McIntosh’s father was at one of Brooks’ annual preseason speaking stops at the Lexington Rotary Club in the summer of 2009 when he heard about a possible opportunity for his son.

“One of the questions at the Rotary that day was, ‘What keeps you awake at night?’ ” McIntosh said his father recalled Brooks saying. “Coach Brooks said, ‘Not having Tim Masthay there to kick the ball into the end zone.’ He said there was no one on campus that could do that. My dad and other people encouraged me to take the challenge and work at it for the few weeks prior to that open tryout that I knew was the first day of classes.”

A few weeks later, despite a year off from football and just one season of playing experience during his senior year at Lexington Christian Academy, McIntosh decided to come out for open tryouts on the first day of school last year. Previously, McIntosh had no goals or expectations of ever playing college ball. His only reason for even trying it in high school was so he wouldn’t have any regrets.

McIntosh showed up at tryouts a few weeks later, “kicked the day of his life,” and won a spot on the team (remember, open tryouts usually don’t result in any roster players if any).

Even so, no one, not even McIntosh, could have predicted that he would ever see the field much less have a significant impact.

“I was just excited to be on the team last year,” McIntosh said. “I didn’t expect to play at all.”

The next thing McIntosh knew, he found himself dressing for home games before being called into duty against Alabama. McIntosh did so well that he was the team’s starting kickoff specialist at South Carolina the following week.

Brooks was so impressed with McIntosh’s ability to get the ball into the end zone that he was named the kickoff specialist for the remainder of the season. Even though he got off to a late start, McIntosh finished the year ranked fourth in the Southeastern Conference with 11 touchbacks.

“It’s been a great honor and a privilege to be out there to be given the shot and opportunity that I have,” McIntosh said. “I just want to make the most of it and do the best that I can on every kick.”

McIntosh’s ability to seize his opportunity has parlayed into an even bigger role this year. With big-footed Mansour trying to fight through some freshman inconsistencies and sophomore Ryan Tydlacka unable to make the transition from punter to placekicker, McIntosh was given the opportunity in week three to kick field goals.

He followed through by nailing his first career attempt against Akron. He’s now 4-of-6 on the season, including a gutsy and career-long field goal of 50 yards to end the first half Saturday against Ole Miss.

“I was nervous to some extent, but the wind was at my back,” a modest McIntosh said of the 50-yarder. “I had hit it multiple times in warm-ups. I knew that I could. It was right before the half so it was kind of just like get out there and give it a shot, and I just happened to knock it through the pipes.”

Now placekicker is McIntosh’s job to lose for the rest of the year.

“If he keeps looking like he did last Saturday then we’ll get more and more confidence every day,” special teams coach Greg Nord said. “He continues to improve every day. He’s showed us out on the practice field that he’s ready to be our kicker. Now he’s just got to go out there and just perform consistently.”

McIntosh, a redshirt sophomore, nearly came through during UK’s frantic fourth-quarter comeback against the Rebels. For the onside-kick attempt, instead of going with Mansour, who, with the help of his strong leg, has replaced McIntosh on kickoffs this year, Phillips elected to give McIntosh the chance.

Once again, the walk-on came through with a flawlessly executed kick that bounced a couple of times and the sprung high into the air. The ball landed perfectly in linebacker Danny Trevathan’s hands but he was unable to hold on to the ball. 

“That execution was done as well as it could be done at any level of football,” Nord said. “If you drew up a clinic tape on how the techniques look, that was it.”

McIntosh credits his high-school experience as a two-time all-state honoree in soccer and his time with UK’s Army ROTC with helping him succeed as a kicker, but not any soccer player or soldier can kick field goals. It’s taken McIntosh time, technique and hard work to become a starting SEC kicker.

“I’ve done hundreds of onside kicks just practicing for it, and never has it been that perfect,” McIntosh said. “I couldn’t ask for a better one. We gave it the best shot we could to get that ball back and get the momentum we had, but it just didn’t work out this time. Hopefully I can do it if I’m put in that situation again.”

Having earned the placekicker position, McIntosh will be faced with more pressure-packed kicks in hostile SEC environments like he was Saturday. McIntosh said all he can do is prepare for them and take them kick by kick, and his coaches have the confidence in him that he can continue to execute.

“Never has his character been questioned,” Nord said. “He’s a very strong-minded person. I promise you, I coach those guys hard because I feel like they have to have the pressure on them during the course of the week in order to go out there on Saturdays and kick it.”

No matter what the future holds for McIntosh and the kicking position, McIntosh’s ascension from a one-year kicker, to trying out for the team, serving as the team’s kickoff specialists, to Saturday’s two long field goals, has been an unlikely journey.

“He grew up Saturday,” Phillips said.

Mansour trying to fight through inconsistencies: With McIntosh flourishing as the team’s kicker, the question now becomes, what about highly touted recruit Mansour?

Phillips and Nord have continually reiterated that Mansour will be a “big-time player” for the Cats down the road if he can fight through some inconsistencies. Although fans have been clamoring for Mansour to get a shot – the kicker has become somewhat of a legend after kicking six field goals over 50 yards during high school – the kid is just a freshman.

“We’ve got to get him using the same stroke every time,” Nord said.

Because of his powerful leg, Mansour has served as the team’s kickoff specialist this year over McIntosh, but Phillips would like to see improvements in Mansour, offering an interesting comparison for his first-year kicker.

“We’ve got John Daly kicking off for us,” Phillips said. “(Mansour’s) got a strong leg, (but) you don’t know where it’s going to go.  It’s got to be inbounds, but some day he’ll be Greg Norman. He’ll be a guy that can hit it a long way and keep it in play.”

Nord said it would be a great asset if they knew Mansour could kick it through the end zone every time, but since nobody’s foolproof, they have to place the kicks in the right spot as well.

UK currently ranks 110th in the nation in kickoff defense.

“What happens to you if you just let a guy get up there and just take off and hit it wherever they want, where do the guys start their coverage?” Nord said. “It’s like running a race. You’ve got to have a direction of where you’re going to start to and you change courses it you have to detour.”