FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The Razorbacks had three very solid legs at field goal kicker, kickoff specialist and punter last season. Things are shaping up to be more of the same this year.
Sophomore kicker Cam Little will be looking to build on his Freshman All-SEC Freshman campaign from last season. Redshirt senior punter Reid Bauer decided to spend another year in Fayetteville after serving as the primary punter in 2021-22. And the Hogs added Jake Bates from Texas State to try and win the kickoff specialist job.
Arkansas special teams coordinator Scott Fountain said he is pleased with the way guys are performing.
"Our punters, and our field goal kickers as well, but particularly our punters, they've been very competitive and both been very good for us in camp," Fountain said. "We’ve had as good a camp with our punters as I’ve ever had. Just their consistency on what they’re doing."
Though Bauer spent last season as the starting punter and holder for the Hogs, freshman Max Fletcher from Australia is making things interesting.
Bauer averaged 43.3 yards per punt on 58 punts past year and he landed 16 of them inside the 20-yard line.
Fletcher is a highly-touted freshman out of ProKick Australia and Razorback head coach Sam Pittman has said his main concern with Fletcher is that he has such a strong leg that he will out-kick the coverage.
"He’s got a strong leg," Pittman said on August 3. "Right now, we’re trying to get him to punt it to a spot a little bit more consistently. But he can kick it 20 miles high."
Fountain said the battle at punter has been fierce through 11 days of fall camp.
"Reid is a guy that when I got here I didn't know a lot about him," Fountain said. "We call him dark horse Bauer. He never goes away, never quits playing good ball. He's had a great camp. Fletcher has had a great camp. It's going to be interesting. It's going to come down to the wire with those two I think, but I've been very, very pleased with both of them. We are much better there than we have been in the past."
At the kicker spot, Little is the clear favorite to take care of field goal duties. The staff brought him in on scholarship to make sure they had a reliable kicker, and he impressed as a freshman, making 20-24 field goals and going a perfect 46-46 on PATs.
The battle between Little and Bates is for the duties of kickoff specialist. Last season, Vito Calvaruso was one of the nation's top kickoff guys, but he transferred to Wisconsin over the offseason.
Little took care of kickoff duties in Arkansas' Outback Bowl win over Penn State, so he is more than capable of being the guy.
Bates spent the past two seasons as Texas State's kickoff specialist. As a junior in 2021-22, Bates averaged 62.76 yards per kickoff and he had 35 touchbacks on 53 kickoffs.
"(Little's) competing his tail off and he’s certainly better than he was a year ago," Fountain said. "And then Bates is kind of a guy that was a soccer player turned football that’s he’s always been a kickoff guy. So that’s kind of why we brought him here to see how he would do. But he’s done very well. This scrimmage this Saturday will be really big for me to see how they kind of finish up camp."
Little said he would love to add the kickoff duties, but Bates is doing a good job of making it tough.
"The competition is head and head and we're both doing a really good job," Little said. "I think we both work really hard at it. So, it would be cool to kickoff, but I mean, that's obviously up to Coach Fountain on who has those duties."
Having competition at punter and kicker is one thing, but to have two guys at each position that could easily start is another. Pittman and Fountain have prioritized those positions in recruiting and it is starting to pay off.
"I think we can attribute a lot of that success to Coach Fountain," Bauer said. "The way he has us work at practice and during the offseason, he really keeps us accountable. It's been really good for our unit, I mean I've been here, this is gonna be my fifth season, and I've just seen the specialist room continue to grow every single year, and it's been really fun to be a part of."
