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NUGENT HOPES ADDED POUNDS KICK-START YEAR | By DAN MARTIN | New York Jets

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August 6, 2007 -- Mike Nugent lined up with five seconds left on the clock and got rid of his usual thought process.

“From 65 yards, you just want to crush it,” the kicker said of his third field goal attempt in the Jets’ simulated game yesterday at Fordham University. “You never want to think that way, like in golf, but in that situation, you have to go for it.”

His kick came up about five yards short, giving the White team a 24-21 win over the Green team, but that was about the only thing that hasn’t gone Nugent’s way this training camp.

Nugent, entering his third year in the league, put on about 10 pounds in the offseason - he’s listed at 5-9, 188 pounds - and said he is already seeing the results.

“I can definitely feel the difference,” said Nugent, who drilled kicks from 48 and 26 yards, as well as a 53-yarder at the end of the first half, before missing the final attempt that would have forced overtime. “Now, the key is not to lose it, so I have to stay in the weight room.”

His motivation came from several sources.

“I looked around the league at some of the better kickers, like Olindo [Mare] and [Adam] Vinatieri, and saw that even though they were only an inch or so taller than me, they had 10 or 20 pounds on me,” Nugent said of the 190-pound Mare and 202-pound Vinatieri. “I knew the only way I would ever get to that level would be to get bigger, so that’s what I did.”

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