Kickin It

Southmoore Sabercat Cameron Little accepts scholarship offer to play in the SEC

BY: Steve Marshall

PRESENTED BY: Larry Leemaster DDS

In the world of recruiting, there have traditionally been many high school football players from Oklahoma who were nationally ranked recruits. Quarterbacks, running backs and plenty of defensive backs have left Oklahoma and went on to play for teams in Power Five conferences. However, it is far less common to see nationally ranked Oklahoma kickers leave the state to play for SEC schools.

This year, count Southmoore senior kicker Cameron Little as one of those rare athletes who is taking off to play in the SEC at the University of Arkansas.

His resume is impressive. Kohl’s Professional Football Camps ranks Little nationally as the No. 2 kicker and No. 8 punter in this year’s class.

Little’s story began his freshman year as a soccer player at Southmoore.

“As a soccer player, I had always kicked the football around with my friends, but had never put on pads and had never seriously thought about kicking before,”

Little shared. “My freshman year about seven weeks into the football season, I was asked to go out to football practice to see if I could help out as a kicker.

“I put on a football helmet for the first time and thought this is really different. (I) punted the football around for a bit. After a while, they asked me if I wanted to play in the JV game that night. I said, ‘Sure.’ I’ve been kicking ever since!”

Little gave up soccer after his junior year to concentrate solely on kicking on the gridiron rather than the pitch.

“I’m done with soccer for good now, I feel like I need to focus all my efforts on kicking as I have a really good chance to start at Arkansas,” he said.

When asked about his best attributes, Little cited the consistency of his kicking abilities. He made five of his seven field goal attempts last year, including his longest at 47 yards.

Little shared that he has made a field goal from as far as 68 yards during practice, showing he is not only consistent but has long range ability as well.

His favorite kickers in the NFL are Jake Elliot of the Philadelphia Eagles and Justin Tucker of the Baltimore Ravens.

Little said some of the reasons he chose Arkansas were that it was only three hours away from home, that they have a great recruiting class and the Razorbacks have a dedicated special teams coach, Mike Krysl.

Little added that he had an offer from Oklahoma State University, but the offer was as a preferred walk-on.

“I really like OSU, but I was looking for a scholarship offer,” he explained. “Oklahoma’s best offer was to redshirt and maybe punt later down the road as the Sooners already have a very good young kicker in sophomore Gabe Brkic.”

As you follow Oklahoma high school football this fall, keep an eye on Cameron Little, place kicker and punter for the Southmoore Sabercats as he prepares for next year as a Razorback.-19SM