Hogs hoping special teams special in 2024

By Jason Pattyson

FAYETTEVILLE — A staple that Razorback fans have come to depend on with special teams is now a big question mark until the 2024 football season begins. It will be hard replacing kicker Cam Little and punter Max Fletcher. 

Little, now kicking for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was as dependable of a kicker as the program has had in recent years if not a couple of decades. Spring practice and the scrimmage this past April left fans and the coaching staff with more questions than answers. During the spring both Senior Mathew Shipley, a transfer from Hawai’i, and redshirt senior Vito Calvaruso were 50% in the field goal duties, and that was concerning. So, incoming redshirt senior Kyle Ramsey, a transfer over the summer from Abilene Christian University, is in the mix at kicker this fall. 

“Well, possibly the first scrimmage was the first time in the stadium. You know, kicking, that’s all I can relate it to. The second time, the spring game, it was really windy. And I never make excuses.” Scott Fountain said about the kickers in the spring. “But obviously you’ve got to play around that, and I think in the spring game they were both trying to overcorrect the wind too much is what I felt. But at the end of the day, you’ve just got to make those field goals. You know, we want to be 80% on the year. That’s what we want to be every year. You know, you can be a 78% guy and a 73% guy, but if you hit 80% of your field goals, I mean, you’re going to have some special seasons, I think.”

Shipley started as both kicker and punter during his senior season at Hawai’i. 14-for-18 (77.8%) on field goal attempts with a season-long 51-yard made field goal, 30-for-31 on point after attempts, led the team in scoring 72 points. He punted 60 times on the season, averaging 39.5 yards per punt. He finished with 10 punts of 50-plus yards, including a season-long 56-yard punt, and pinned nine punts inside the 20-yard line.

Ramsey played in 11 games for the Wildcats in his redshirt senior season, going 14-for-15 on field goals and adding 33 extra points for 75 total points; he averaged 62.6 yards per kickoff over 57 kicks. Ramsey was a perfect 7-for-7 on attempts from 40-49 yards and 4-for-5 on attempts of 50-plus yards, including a season-best 55-yard field goal vs. Prairie View.

Former kicker Jake Bates, now kicking for the Detroit Lions made headlines in the spring in the USFL and according to Coach Fountain, he was close to not becoming a Razorback.

“Bates, he was headed to Mississippi State on scholarship, which is kinda crazy. I call him and I said “Come see us, come see us for Friday night.” Fountain said. “He comes over, he fell in love with it and he stayed. He walked on here. That’s what he did, he gave up a scholarship to walk on here. He felt like this was a good situation for him. He has just continued to work. He really had a strong leg here but Cam was just a little bit more consistent, not by a lot.”

Both Little and Bates landing with NFL teams show that not only can Arkansas put kickers in the league but it can develop kickers. That’s huge for kickers in high school who are trying to decide on the school they want to kick at, and it comes down to how many kickers and punters the school produces. 

 A tidbit Fountain did offer up was that Little had to earn his job every year he was at Arkansas and it was never his job to lose but to earn. That’s the approach he is taking with Shipley and Ramsey in the kicking duties this fall.

“When I was at Auburn, Daniel Carlson did both. When I was at Georgia, Rodrigo did both. Rodrigo Blankenship. When I came here and I knew we had to have one, we’re going to have to cover some really good teams.” Fountain said. “But we’ve been blessed. I’ve been blessed at Georgia, blessed here. We’ve had phenomenal kickoff guys, and when you don’t have one it can get you if you’re playing a really good returner. So, I’m not necessarily in favor of splitting them. I’m fine with one guy doing it. I just want the best guy to do it.”

The other half of this is replacing the punting duties when Fletcher decided to transfer to Cincinnati, and who could blame him for getting a chance to play college football with your brother half a world away from home?  Redshirt junior Devin Bale became a Razorback after spending two years at Northern Colorado before having to sit out last year. Bale transferred as a walk-on and got the call from head coach Sam Pittman the day Fletcher announced he was transferring. 

“It was last spring, end of school year. Right after… It was like the day when Max left and he brought me in and let me know.” Bale said on earning a scholarship.” I was in class, actually, when they called me. I came in right after class, about an hour after, and the coaches sat me down and broke me the news and called my parents and let them know. It was a great feeling.”

Bale comes in with solid numbers from Colorado State, he recorded 51 punts for 2,095 yards, averaged 63.9 yards per kickoff, compiled 32 touchbacks on 41 kickoffs, averaged 41.1 yards per punt, and totaled 14 punts inside the 20-yard line his sophomore year. He was busy his freshman season punting 52 times for 2,145 yards, averaging 41.3 yards per punt, which ranked 27th nationally, set a program record after booting an 84-yard punt vs. Sacramento State on Oct. 21, 2022.