Jayden Fielding to handle place kicking, kickoffs for Ohio State
COLUMBUS — Ohio State has its kicker. Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day said Tuesday that Jayden Fielding will handle both place kicking and kickoff duties.
Fielding was Ohio State’s kickoff specialist in all 13 games last year as a true freshman.
Fielding is replacing Noah Ruggles, who finished his two-season Buckeyes career with the highest field goal percentage in the Ohio State record book but infamously hooked the final kick of his career — a potential 50-yard game-winner against Georgia in the Peach Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal — wide left.
Still, the North Carolina transfer converted 37-of-41, or 90.2%, of his Ohio State attempts. One of those 37 makes was a 19-yarder that won the Buckeyes the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2021 season.
Now a sophomore, the IMG Academy product beat out Parker Lewis in a competition for the starting nod on both kickoffs and field goals/PATs.
Lewis transferred in last season from USC, where he connected on 26-of-35 field goal attempts in two years and set a career long of 52 yards.
But Fielding, who has still yet to attempt a collegiate field goal or extra point, did enough to separate from Lewis ahead of Saturday’s season opener at Indiana.
“It’s just overall consistency,” Day explained. “Again, we chart everything. And [Jayden’s] done a really good job in the spring. He did a nice job kicking off for us last year. And his overall consistency has allowed him to be the starter.
“We just really go off of the chart, how many kicks have you made in this area, how many kicks have you made in this area? We’ve had live situations, what have those been like? We look at it with the stadium, we look at it at practice, kind of chart everything and do the best we can. And so he’s won that job.”
Last week, Ohio State special teams coordinator Parker Fleming said that Fielding and Lewis were “very close” in their two-way race for the starting job.
“We got two guys that can get it done and who are doing a great job this camp,” Fleming said at the time. “We’re just trying to make sure we finalize it the right way and we have the best guy going to go kick the ball.”
Now that decision has been finalized.
Fleming said he wanted a kicker, with whom you “know what you’re gonna get.”
Fielding is that guy for the Buckeyes right now.
