JB, I saved this piece a while back because it gave such a great explanation and highlights on the subject......and just found it (sorry, I didn't save the link). But it goes along with the things I've heard from others in the know regarding the "laces myth."
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It's a myth that the placement of the laces has any effect on the kick. The foot (or the part of the foot that actually matters) makes contact with the ball well below the stripes or laces. From that alone, one can deduce that it doesn't matter. If the foot did hit the stripe, the kicker fucked up.
One of my favorite bits trivia is that having the laces in will actually help the ball fly further, in theory at least. This is because kicking is all about air pressure. The goal when kicking is to compress the ball as much as possible for as long as possible. This is why you see kickers who can put their foot over their head. The more flexible the kicker, the longer his foot can stay on the ball.
A regulation football is inflated to 13.5 psi. Ideally, you want your kick to decrease the size of the ball by 1/3 which, by Boyle's Law, will increase the pressure by ~30%. That force is being exerted on the top side of the ball facing away from the kicker. You want an efficient energy transfer between the foot and the back side of the ball bladder. The laces and stripes are stitched on. This means that there are holes in the leather where they are attached. If the laces are out, the bladder can expand into these holes which means the volume of air increases, and the pressure decreases. Obviously, the effect is negligible, but it is interesting.
The one problem I see from the thumbnail picture that could have affected the kick is that the ball is tilted too far back. Ideally, the ball should be facing slightly away from the kicker to expose more the bottom, allowing the kicker to hit further under the ball. It also looks like the kicker's plant foot is too close to the ball. The expression I learned is that the plant leg is the smart leg and the kicking leg is the dumb one. If you want to know where the ball is going, look at the plant foot. The plant is tricky in college because they don't get a tee for reference. This means that the holder has to be consistent with where he places the ball otherwise the kicker's plant foot will be in the wrong spot.