STARKVILLE — The shoes of Logan Cooke were never going to be say to fill, given he was one of the Southeastern Conference’s best as both a punter and a kickoff specialist last year.
Replacing Cooke the punter has been an adventure, to say the least. Replacing Cooke the kickoff man has been as simple as handing it over to Scott Goodman.
The freshman from Brandon has impressed his coaches in his first season going into a game that will likely mean to more him than most: the Egg Bowl, 6:30 p.m. Thursday (ESPN) against Ole Miss, where his sister Jaime is also a freshman.
“He’s another guy that I would say is above expectation level,” coach Joe Moorhead said. “He’s come in, won a job and I think he’s getting a little better every week. When you have a weapon like that on your kickoff team that can put the ball through the end zone and limit the number of returns a team gets, then he helps you in the battle of hidden yardage.
“He’s a guy that’s been doing a good job on kickoff, but we’re trying to grow him: he’s working on field goals and he can also punt. Very talented young man and we’re happy to have him with us.”
Truth be told, No. 22 MSU (7-4, 3-4 SEC) is lucky to have him. Goodman ended his senior season unsure of if he would have a chance to live out this dream.
In between his junior and senior seasons, he and his father Tony took a tour. They travelled around, going to camps and visiting colleges. At some point in that tour, Tony wanted to know what Scott was looking for.
“I asked him, ‘What’s the dream school?’ to get it and go from there. The dream was to play in-state, play in the SEC, to represent his home state,” Tony Goodman told The Dispatch.
Then there was more waiting. Goodman played his senior season, and played it well — with no in-state scholarship offer to show for it. Other options looked like his only option until he walked off the practice field at the Mississippi-Alabama All-Star game, when MSU senior special teams advisor Chris Boniol called and offered a preferred walk-on spot.
“I think when the Mississippi State offer came along, even if it wasn’t a scholarship offer, that was a big deal, to kick in the SEC,” Tony Goodman said.
From there, Scott Goodman spent most of December on the phone with MSU’s then-special teams coordinator Scott Fountain; Fountain took the same job at Georgia after National Signing Day. Tony Goodman estimates his son spent almost every day on the phone with Fountain, possibly all the way up to the day he signed; he was also fielding interest from other schools.
Army and UMass wanted the Goodmans to come for a visit, but Tony things Scott found it too hard to go that far from home. The Goodmans were serious about interest from Central Arkansas, but head coach Steve Campbell leaving for the South Alabama job made that prospect complicated.
In the end, Boniol is a big reason why Goodman is at MSU.
“Chris Boniol was a big factor in that also, his knowledge and his ability to develop him as a kicker,” Tony Goodman said. “I always talked to the special teams coaches and the coaches that recruited him; I always asked what their background was in kicking and I had coaches tell me, ‘I don’t have any.’ A good many special teams coaches had no kicking experience, especially at the small schools.
“I even had a coach tell me, ‘If he struggles kicking, I can’t help him, but I don’t have a problem with you calling a kicking coach and getting help from him.’ That’s not really what I want to hear as a parent.”
Through Boniol, MSU and Scott Goodman are both getting more than they wanted out of 2018. MSU gets a quality kickoff man and three more years of him; Goodman gets to live his dream and play in the most important game of his life on Thursday.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.