Ranking the Big Ten: Kicker
As the 2022 college football season quickly approaches, it is time to look at the top players in the Big Ten Conference.
We continue our Ranking the Big Ten series by rating the top five returning kickers in the conference.
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1. Jake Moody, Michigan
Jake Moody sits atop this list as the undisputed top kicker returning to the Big Ten in 2022.
The Michigan native is fresh off a 2021 in which he went 56-for-56 on extra points and 23 of 25 on field goals adding up to a total of 125 points. He won the Lou Groza Award for the nation’s best kicker and was the Bakken-Anderson Big Ten Kicker of the year. Each award was won for the first time in the history of Michigan’s program. Moody also earned First-Team All-Big Ten honors from the conference’s coaches.
The graduate student, who agonized about his decision to return for weeks, enters his final year with the Wolverines a perfect 88-for-88 on extra points in his career and has made 81.6% of his field goals. His Pro Football Focus (PFF) field goal grade is a sparkling 90.2 which is good for sixth in the country last season. That grade is the top returning score in the Big Ten.
He is a weapon in the kickoff game too. Moody averaged 67.4 yards per kickoff and on average his opponents started their drives a little less than a yard inside the 25 yard line. He scored a 82.4 in that category according to PFF with 65 touchbacks and a 4.15 second hangtime.
Lindy’s projects that Moody will be a Second-Team All-American, First-Team All-Big Ten and the No. 2 kicker nationally.
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2. Noah Ruggles, Ohio State
Ohio State’s Noah Ruggles comes in second in this ranking but finished ahead of Jake Moody in the Big Ten media’s postseason voting.
Ruggles was named to the Second-Team All-Big Ten by the conference media while Moody received Third-Team All-Big Ten honors. Much like Moody, Ruggles had a decision to make after the end of the 2021 season. He too decided to return for a sixth and final season, but he did it with a clever twist of humor.
In January, he announced he was declaring for the draft. The 2023 draft that is. In 2022, Ruggles will return for his second season with Ohio State after spending the first four years of his collegiate career as a North Carolina Tar Heel.
Last season with the Buckeyes, Ruggles went 74-for-74 on extra points and made 20 of 21 field goals. That 95.2% success rate is both a career and single season record at Ohio State and he scored 134 points in total.
His PFF grade field goal grade was an 87.3 which is the second best among returning Big Ten kickers. Ruggles is Lindy’s No. 7 kicker nationwide in 2022.
3. Charles Campbell, Indiana
Charles Campbell was on the preseason Lou Groza watch list in 2021. Then the Indiana season went off the rails.
Lindy’s placed the redshirt senior on their preseason Third-Team All-Big Ten team for 2022. That puts him a team behind Noah Ruggles. But, Lindy’s ranked Campbell as the country’s No. 6 kicker. There the advantage goes to Campbell who is one spot of Ruggles on that scale. The point being, these two aren’t that far off.
One kicker plays for one of the best offenses in the nation while the other is a part of an Indiana team that is try to pick itself up after a nightmare 2-10 season.
Campbell’s 2021 saw an 81.4 PFF field goal grade. It was a season in which he went 20 of 20 on extra points and 13-for-18 on field goal attempts. Campbell went an impressive 7-for-10 on field goals of 40 yards but he missed a pair in the 30-39 yard range.
The year before, Campbell was perfect on extra points at 25-for-25 and 10 of 11 for field goals. He was 5-for-6 on attempts that were 40 yards or longer and at one point made two field goals longer than 50 yards in the same game. His PFF grade was an 86.4 which is just a point behind Ruggles 2021 grade.
Campbell will look to regain 2020 form in 2022 as will the rest of his Hoosier teammates.
4. Mitch Fineran, Purdue
Mitch Fineran knows a thing or two about clutch kicking.
After hitting the game winner in a wild Music City Bowl finish last winter, the Purdue Boilermaker is back for as a graduate student this season. He joined Purdue in 2021 after playing his first few years of college ball at Samford.
Fineran was 40-for-42 on extra points and 24 for 29 on field goals. He was a perfect 11-for-11 on field goals less than 30 yards but struggles in the 30-39 yard range. There Fineran went 12-for-17 and those five misses were the most in that range of any Big Ten kicker. His PFF field goal grade finished at 76.3.
Lindy’s sees Fineran as a preseason Second-Team All-Big Ten team member. The Boilermakers will have to hope the merit Fineran showed in the 48-45 win over Tennessee was a harbinger of things to come.
5. Chad Ryland, Maryland
The transfer portal matters for kickers too.
Chad Ryland was one of the most coveted special teams transfers from the last cycle. He entered the portal as a graduate of Eastern Michigan in January. He left the Eagles with the second most made field goals in school history (56), the career leader in made PATs (141) and career points scored (309).
His career numbers include a 97.2% conversion rate on extra points and a 75.7% field goal conversion rate. The second number may appear low, but in his 2021 campaign Ryland was 19-for-22 on field goals including a 7-for-8 mark on attempts longer than 40 yards. He also went 47-for-47 on extra points.
His PFF field goal grade was 89.2 in 2022 which would be the second best of the kickers returning to the Big Ten this year. He excelled in kickoff duties too. Jake Moody (82.4) just edges Ryland (82.3) for the best kickoff grade in this ranking. Ryland averaged 62.9 yards per attempt with a 3.91 hang time and 40 touchbacks.
Ryland is ranked by Lindy’s as the nation’s No. 4 kicker for 2022. With his Midwest kicking background, he should fit right in to the Big Ten. Just look to that gem of a tweet above for more proof.
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