The Arkansas Razorbacks have been spoiled for the past three seasons with Cam Little at kicker, but they now enter 2024 with a question mark at both place kicker and kickoff specialist.
While Little has handled place kicking duties for each of the past three seasons, special teams coordinator Scott Fountain has deployed a different kickoff specialist each year.
Vito Calvaruso was sixth in the nation with 63 touchbacks in 2021, Jake Bates was third nationally with 64 touchbacks in 2022 and Little ranked fourth nationally with a touchback percentage of 85.5% last year. Bates and Little are likely going to be starting kickers in the NFL this season for the Lions and Jaguars, respectively.
READ MORE: Arkansas Fall Camp Practice No. 3: Depth Chart, Video, Notes
After transferring to Wisconsin for a season, Calvaruso is back in Fayetteville, along with Hawaii transfer Matthew Shipley and Abilene Christian transfer Kyle Ramsey. The three kickers are currently battling things out in fall camp.
"That’s going to be a battle between those three guys," head coach Sam Pittman said Tuesday. "We need to find out fairly quick. I think we need to find out before school starts — the next two weeks, two-and-a-half weeks — who’s going to be that guy."
Shipley entered spring practices as the presumed starter, but he didn't run away with the job. As a senior last year at Hawaii, Shipley was 14-for-18 (77.8%) on field goal attempts with a season-long 51-yard field goal and he was 30-for-31 on point after attempts (PATs).
VIDEO: Scott Fountain, specialists talk Arkansas fall camp
A native of Liberty Hill, Texas, Shipley is 56-for-73 on field goals in his career. His best statistical season at Hawaii came in 2021, when he was 18-for-21 on field goals and 42-for-42 on PATs. Shipley also punted 60 times with an average of 39.5 yards per punt.
"I’ll tell you Matthew is a phenomenal kid," Fountain said. "He’s a twin. Just very well-centered, comes from a great home and to be honest with you, he’s never said one word about it. Just has to work and do better. That was the one thing I was attracted to with him was his personality."
Last season at Abilene Christian, Kyle Ramsey was 14-for-15 on field goals and he also knocked through 33 PATs. Ramsey also averaged 62.6 yards per kickoff on 57 attempts.
"Ramsey, really excited about him," Fountain said. "He played at Abilene Christian, was at Houston for four years. Great kid, already graduated with an engineering degree. Had a good summer."
Based out of Missouri City, Texas, Ramsey spent his first four seasons of college football at Houston. He was 5-for-7 on field goal attempts with the Cougars, but he also handled kickoff duties from time-to-time, especially when he averaged 57.8 yards per kick on 55 kicks as a freshman in 2019.
Calvaruso was just 1-for-3 on field goals and 7-for-7 on PATs during his long season with Wisconsin in 2022. As a sophomore at Arkansas in 2021, the Jefferson City, Missouri, native averaged 64.8 yards per kick and his touchback percentage of 85.14% ranked fourth nationally.
"He has a great leg and he’s also competing for the field goal job as well, which is important to him," Fountain said. "I think we’ve got several guys that are good kickoff guys, it’s a good competition but Vito’s done it on the field and been very successful doing it."
As a freshman in 2020, Calvaruso had 33 touchbacks on 48 kickoffs with an average of 64.3 yards per kick.
"I really like Shipley and Vito had a good spring, it’s just when we got in the stadium," Fountain said. "We try to grade them three ways. One is when nobody is around, just called charting. Nobody but me, just me yelling at them a little bit and then we have live. With live, we have a rush and then we have scrimmages. They were pretty dang good in live and just charting with nobody watching, but in the stadium is what concerned. They were 50% in the spring."
According to Fountain, the next three days will be key for the kicking competition before the team's first scrimmage Thursday (Aug. 8).
"Over the next first three days, everybody's got a different snapper and a different holder," Fountain said. "Everybody, because we’ve got three apiece, right? And we're going to do it again the next three days. And then we're going to see how that plays out, and then we'll go to the scrimmage.
"So, that's the tough part right now, but if a guy can continue to make it with a different holder and snapper, it makes you feel better about him. We're going through that process. As we get closer and it kind of starts showing its face then we'll start narrowing it down to those guys. But we're giving them every opportunity to be the guy for the next two weeks."
Arkansas fall camp will continue Saturday with the fourth practice ahead of the season opener Thursday, Aug. 29, a
