With Jonathan Kim gone, injuries have hampered Michigan State football's goal to find the reliable kicker's replacement.
EAST LANSING — Quietly, without much notoriety, Michigan State football lost one of its biggest weapons from the past two years.
And the Spartans’ quest to replace their graduated kicker remains among their biggest question marks heading into the Aug. 29 season opener against Western Michigan.
Chad Wilt, MSU’s special teams co-coordinator, said both redshirt freshman Martin Connington and third-year sophomore Tarik Ahmetbasic are working through nagging injuries that have at times limited their participation in preseason camp. Walk-on Blake Sislo, who spent three seasons in Division II but was out of football last year, has handled much of the kicking duties on field goals and kickoffs in August.
From a steady, sixth-year specialist to three kickers with one collegiate appearance between them. No worries, right?
“The old coaching adage is the best ability is dependability and availability,” Wilt said after practice Thursday, Aug. 14. “Can we be dependable and available?”
Those two traits defined Kim, who transferred to MSU after spending his first four at North Carolina and played in all 24 games the past two seasons. He finished as the Spartans’ career leader in made field-goal percentage at 82.1%, making 32 of 39 attempts, and his 135 points from 2023-24 accounted for nearly 32% of the team’s scoring as MSU’s offense often sputtered. His strong leg proved valuable, going 7-for-11 from 50 yards or longer, including a 58-yarder in 2023 at Iowa that is the fourth-longest in MSU history.
Kim, waived by the Chicago Bears on Tuesday, Aug. 12, also was a weapon on kickoffs, with 58 of his 94 with the Spartans going for touchbacks. He handled all kicking duties a year ago other than when Ahmetbasic, a 2023 preferred walk-on from Clinton Township, kicked an extra point and two kickoffs in the fourth quarter of a blowout win over Prairie View A&M.
Connington, an Idaho native who was among the top kickers in the 2024 class, did not play.
Wilt said adding Sislo as an extra kicker with Connington and Ahmetbasic hobbled has allowed the Spartans “to have no hiccups in the operation” working their field goal unit on blocking and coverage on kickoffs. Sislo, a Davenport transfer from Dexter, has never played in a collegiate game.
The expectation is for Connington or Ahmetbasic to be ready for the season and elevate their performance, though Wilt also said it is still to be determined if the two could potentially split duties.
“For those guys, it’s getting to that point where they’re really available and dependable,” he said, “whether that’s from a physical health standpoint or details and execution.”
Who delivers the ball also remains to be seen. Because the long snapper position has become a revolving door of odd circumstances rivaled only by the drummer chair in the fictional band Spinal Tap.
Kaden Schickel suffered a season-ending knee injury against Michigan last season after he handled the job for the first eight games. It was the third straight season in which the Spartans had to turn to a backup long snapper to finish the year.
After Schickel's injury in 2024, walk-on linebacker Sam Edwards split the duties with Jack Carson-Wentz, who left the team after the season. Again, snapping was an issue down the stretch.
On Schickel’s injury, Wilt said, “We suffered some consequences from it.”
MSU added true freshman Jack Wills from Hudsonville in the offseason as a long snapping specialist. Edwards, veteran tight end Brennan Parachek and true freshman linebacker Leonard Ah You also have worked there during camp.
But Wilt believes Schickel should be ready by the time the Spartans debut against the Broncos in less than two weeks (7 p.m., FS1).
“That ACL is a real thing, it takes time. And he’s gotta respond to that,” Wilt said of Schickel. “But I think he’ll be ready to rock and roll when it’s time to rock and roll.”
Contact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football special teams has questions at kicker, snapper
Category: General Sports
