Freshman Kickers Have Big Shoes To Fill

NC State will start two true freshman in the kicking game to start the 2015 season. Place Kicker Kyle Bambard and Punter A.J. Cole III quite literally have big shoes to fill.

Punter Will Baumann and Place Kicker Nik Sade both just graduated as 4-year starters at their respective positions.

Baumann’s 266 career punts and 10,868 total yards punted are NC State records, and his 40.0 yard career punt average ranks 9th all-time in school history. His 45.4 punt average last season was the 2nd best ever by an NC State punter in a single season, behind only the legendary Johnny Evans.

Nik Sade’s 332 career points scored broke Ted Brown’s NC State record (312) for career points scored that had been untouched for 36 years. Sade also finished his career with more field goals than any other kicker in NC State history (55) as well as PAT’s (167)

With that being said, though Baumann and Sade blazed a big trail to follow, it is one that is very similar to the one that Bambard and Cole are about to embark on. Both Baumann and Sade took the kicking reigns as true freshman.

Place Kicker Cole was ranked as the 5th best kicker coming out of high school and the 13th best punter. Punter Bambard was ranked as the 9th best place kicker. Both Cole and Bambard were a part of the 2014 Wolfpack recruiting class, but chose to defer their enrollment until 2015.

The Wolfpack kicking game in 2015 will be young and inexperienced with Cole and Bambard, but they remind me of two kickers that showed up on campus as freshman 4 years ago named Will Baumann and Nik Sade. If they follow in their footsteps, the NC State kicking game should be good for the next 4 years.