Seventy-First faces West Charlotte in the NCHSAA football 3A championship at Carter-Finley Stadium on NC State's campus in Raleigh, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. Andrew Craft / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Who Will Kick for Dave Doeren's Wolfpack?

Originally posted on NC State Wolfpack on SI
By Nathan Berry | Last updated Jul 22, 2025 10:00 AM ET

During the 2024 college football season, the NC State Wolfpack had a really well rounded kicking squad. Their two main kickers, Kanoah Vinesett and Collin Smith, never missed an extra point and only missed seven field goals across the season.

Oddly enough, this season Vinesett has decided to redshirt in his junior year at NC State, dropping his playtime, and Collin Smith did not return to the Wolfpack; leaving one question, who will kick for the Wolfpack in 2025?

Head Coach Dave Doeren brought in two freshman kickers in the Wolfpack's 2025 recruiting class, Nick Konieczynski and Charlie Birtwistle. Just like Vinesett, both of them are redshirting this year as well.

There still remains plenty of time between now and the season for Doeren to pick up a kicker by position; however, if he doesn't the kicking attention turns to the teams punters.

Following suit with the kickers, returning punters Owen Fehr and Senior Caden Noonkester are both redshirting the 2025 season. Their redshirts left one punter and potential kicker left in North Carolina: Cristian Harthan.

Harthan was recruited close to home from Cuthbertson High School early in the offseason after commiting late in the summer of 2024. He had good stats for a punter than many others in North Carolina, averaging around 40 yards a punt and a total of 3137 punting yards in his senior season.

The Wolfpack need a kicker though, not a punter, which is why Harthans high school extra point percentage of roughly 91% is what Coach Doeren was looking for. It's not perfect like his kickers were last year by any means, but is something that he can use to cultivate Harthan into an excellent kicker.

Cristian also had a 75% field goal percentage in his high school senior year, impressive because his senior year was the only year he kicked for Cuthberson along with punting.

Cristian is not the only option that the Wolfpack will have by the time the season start, and they can certainly find more recruits to kick by the end of august, but he is their number one option as of now.

Even though the Wolfpack had a rough 6-7 year in 2024, their kickers have always been a highlight. With a precarious position in the kicking squad this year, Doeren has work to do, but their room is not empty by any means. With a hard schedule up ahead there is still reason to have faith in the Wolfpack kickers during the 2025 season.

This article first appeared on NC State Wolfpack on SI and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: