While the start to the season has not gone exactly in Michigan State football’s favor, the Spartans have seen their special team’s unit take a step forward from last season.

Last November, a 22 yard field goal was all that MSU needed to earn a sixth win to be eligible for a bowl game. For most kicker’s, that is a chip shot, but Auburn graduate transfer Ben Patton’s boot was pushed left. That sequence summed up a miserable 2022 from the field goal kicking unit. All in all, Patton and true freshman Jack Stone only managed to hit half of their attempts, as Patton went 4-for-8 and Stone only made two of his four kicks. This year, the addition of North Carolina graduate transfer Johnathan Kim has given special teams coach Ross Els reason to trust his kicker to get three points when in reasonable range.

On eight attempts this year, Kim has only missed two. He has made two kicks from more than 50 yards out, with his most recent 50 plus yarder breaking a Kinnick Stadium record on the road against the Iowa Hawkeyes and marking the second longest strike a kicker in the country has made this season, crossing through the uprights from 58 yards away. 

Kim has also made field goals from 47 and 37 yards out, without even attempting a single kick in the blowout loss to the No. 7 Washington Huskies. 

While sixth round NFL draft pick Bryce Baringer did leave a big hole at the punter position after his First-Team All American 2022 season, redshirt freshman punter Ryan Eckley has filled his spot quite nicely. The underclassman has totaled 15 punts through the first five games of the season, averaging 43.7 yards on each boot, with his longest kick going for almost 70 yards, dying out at 67.

For reference, Baringer averaged not just a school record, but a conference high 46 yards per punt on 161 total kicks in his career. It remains to be seen if Eckley can be consistent with his numbers, but this season has helped put him on a good track to what could be a historic Spartan punting career, similar to Baringer’s. 

Both Eckley and Kim showed out in the close loss in the team’s most recent bout in Iowa City. In addition to his 58 yard bomb, Kim also made two other kicks to increase his total to three made in the contest, marking a season high for field goals made in a game. Eckley’s season-long kick also occurred in the same game, increasing his average for the night to 48.8 yards per boot on a total of six punts throughout the evening.

Even though the team has not had the best start to 2023, having lost three games in a row as of late on top of the firing of their former head coach Mel Tucker even before the losing streak, the team can hang their hat on the fact that they can rely on their special teams unit to flip field position and get them points, the latter being something they couldn’t say about that unit last fall.