Lincoln consoles UAB kicker Zahn

KNOXVILLE - There are certain emotions only fellow kickers can completely comprehend.

That's why Daniel Lincoln briefly stopped celebrating with his Tennessee teammates Saturday afternoon and ran 60 yards across the field to console UAB's Josh Zahn.

"I know exactly what he's going through," Lincoln said. "It's just ... it's hard."

No words from anyone could fully alleviate Zahn's pain after missing his first five field-goal attempts in UT's 32-29, double-overtime win in Neyland Stadium, but Lincoln tried to lend the smallest helping hand. Lincoln had two field goals blocked - including one as time expired - in the Volunteers' 12-10 loss at eventual national champion Alabama last year.

Zahn didn't miss on the last play of the game. He actually rebounded to make a kick in each extra period. But he walked off the field in disbelief at his five misses - any one of which would have given UAB one of the biggest wins in program history.

Lincoln said he gave Zahn a simple message.

"I went up to him after the game, and I told him to keep his head up, because his career wasn't done," Lincoln said. "I told him, 'Keep fighting. Do not stop fighting. When you come through whatever you're going through right now, you're going to be so much better for it.'

"Obviously, I can speak that from the heart."

Zahn wasn't made available to media after the game, but several Blazers stood up for the kicker who enjoyed a solid freshman season a year ago - 14-for-21 with five makes from 40-plus yards, including a 51-yarder against Southern Miss.

"That's football," junior quarterback Bryan Ellis said. "You look at Josh and all the kicks he made for us last year. Josh is a great guy and teammate. He obviously works hard at his craft.

"There is nobody that wanted to make those kicks more than Josh Zahn did, I assure you."

And nobody took it harder than Zahn, according to several teammates.

"We don't blame it on Josh," senior defensive end Bryant Turner said. "Everybody has their bad days. Josh is just one person, and when he has a bad day everybody notices.

"I could have a bad day and nobody even knows it."

Lincoln, who has rebounded quite nicely from a miserable, injury-plagued year to make his first seven three-point tries this season, said responding so well this season might not have been possible without "my family and true friends [who] were there for me."

"I don't want to try to name everybody, because I'm sure I'd leave somebody out," he said. "But a lot of the older guys on the team - basically everybody in my signing class - we roll together in good times and bad, and we lift each other up when times are bad."

David Isabelle, the other half of UAB's quarterback platoon, said the Blazers would do the same for their kicker.

"[Zahn] feels a lot," Isabelle said. "I know he loves everybody on our team, and we love him. It's eating him up right now."

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