Three looming questions about Arkansas football in 2025: Special Teams
The offseason is in full swing, and there’s a little less than a month before the Arkansas Razorbacks will start fall camp ahead of the 2025 season opener against Alabama A&M on Aug. 30.
HawgBeat is continuing our series asking three looming questions about each position group ahead of next season. Up next is the final position group in the series — special teams.
Here’s three that are looming about the Razorbacks’ specialists in 2025…
Who starts at kicker in 2025?
This is the biggest question mark not only as it relates to special teams, arguably of the entire team. Both Matthew Shipley and Kyle Ramsey are gone from last year’s team, and there’s not a clear-cut starter heading into next season.
During spring practice, the trio of Scott Starzyk, Charlie Von Der Meden and Blake Ford rotated field goal duties. Von Der Meden is the only one who has experience in a Razorback uniform, as he kicked off three times last season.
Ford came to Arkansas out of high school in the class of 2022, transferred after the 2023 season to North Texas and then returned to Fayetteville this past offseason. He appeared in 12 games last year, all on kickoffs.
There’s a trio of kickers this season, and it’s possible there’s a position battle through fall camp, but it’s likely Starzyk gets the start at kicker. He doesn’t have any experience kicking field goals in college, but neither do Ford or Von Der Meden, who both only handled kickoff duties last season.
Starzyk was rated by Kohl’s Kicking as a five-star prospect and the No. 1 kicker in the 2025 class. The last time the Razorbacks had an incoming kicker with those kind of accolades was in 2021 with Cam Little, who left Fayetteville as the most accurate kicker in program history (82.8%).
As a senior at The Woodlands (Texas) last fall, Starzyk connected of 5 of 7 field goal attempts with a long of 55 and was a perfect 66 of 66 on extra point tries. He also averaged 55 yards per kickoff and 41 yards per punt with a long of 56 and downed six inside the 20-yard line.
Will Kam Shanks’ preseason accolades come to fruition?
The Razorbacks haven’t had a Jet Award winner since 2011 when Joe Adams won it, but it’s possible Kam Shanks is their best contender for the award.
A finalist for last year’s Jet Award, Shanks came to Arkansas as a transfer from Alabama-Birmingham. He’s a Preseason First Team All-SEC punt returner according to Phil Steele, and returned 16 punts for 329 yards and two touchdowns for the Blazers last season.
Shanks is also a threat as a slot receiver, but he’s especially a threat as a punt returner. Those punt return statistics are nation-leading, and his small, shifty frame allows him to avoid tacklers who are running at him.
“I also like our little punt returner in there,” Petrino said of Shanks. “He’s explosive. He’s going to make plays for us whether we throw it to him, hand it off to him or screen with him. We got to get the ball in his hands because he’s such a great runner doing it.”
Will Devin Bale be among the SEC’s best?
A transfer from Northern Colorado, Bale averaged 45.2 yards per punt in 11 games (the Hogs never punted in week one against UAPB or week three against Alabama-Birmingham), with a long of 66 yards against Tennessee. He downed 11 of his 41 punts inside the 20-yard line for a 26.8% clip.
A redshirt sophomore headed into 2025, Bale has a lot to prove. He’s an Preseason Third Team All-SEC punter according to Phil Steele, and was consistently one of the better punters in the country last season.
