One of the biggest question marks for FSU football going into the 2025 season is how the Noles will replace placekicker Ryan Fitzgerald? The All-American kicker made all 13 of his field goals a year ago, including all five from 50+ yards. He also made all of his extra point attempts.
That wasn’t always the case, especially in his sophomore season, when he only made 12 of 20 field goal attempts. FSU fans have been nervous about the new kicker, Jake Weinberg. The redshirt freshman appeared in one game last year against Charleston Southern. He made his only field goal attempt from 23 yards and the extra point. He also had two kickoffs that went for touchbacks.
The story for Weinberg in fall camp hasn’t been terrible. The book is that he has a huge leg, even larger than Ryan Fitzgerald, but he has shown some inconsistencies at times. However, his recent performance at practice over the weekend should make FSU football fans much more confident going into the season.
FSU special teams coach John Papuchis mentioned that Weinberg went 6-6 and made one field goal from 58 yards and another from 63 yards. That’s the type of consistency I need from our kicker this year. I’d prefer not to have to take long field goals like that, but it’s nice to know the kicker has that type of leg if it’s ever needed.
The biggest thing is I need him to be consistent, so the offensive coordinator doesn’t have to change how he’s calling a game because he lacks confidence in sending the kicker out for what should be routine field goal attempts. It's still one thing to do it at practice and another do it in a big game like when Alabama rolls to town on August 30th.
Hopefully, he's kicking a lot of extra points instead of field goals, but we'll find out sooner or later if it's something he can transfer from practice to actual games soon.