By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Gibsonville’s Collin Smith got in his kicks with North Carolina State during a six-year career with the Wolfpack’s football program.
While his opportunities mostly came on the team’s kickoffs, he said he found the benefits in a well-rounded experience.
“The ability to impact other people outside of football, to have that leadership role with N.C. State, that was big for me,” Smith said.
He handled N.C. State’s kickoffs for the past three seasons and added a few attempts on field goals.
Smith’s role on the Wolfpack’s leadership council gave him responsibilities that he took seriously. He was among that group, which was voted upon by players, for the last three seasons.
Smith had a couple of games when he was the place kicker. That’s a role that he coveted, so last winter he had entered the transfer portal “looking for some place to kick field goals.”
But he found that he had advanced too far in N.C. State’s MBA program to make a move feasible, so he stayed with the Wolfpack. He maintained a leadership role on an N.C. State team that was flush with newcomers.
“That was my favorite part, being a servant leader,” he said. “I got nicknamed ‘PaPa’ and ‘Grandpa.’ ”
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Smith also built relationships with elite kickers.
During the pandemic shutdown in spring and summer of 2020, he worked at Elon’s turf field with current Los Angeles Rams kicker Joshua Karty (Western Alamance alum), N.C. State punter Trenton Gill of Hillsborough (and later with three NFL organizations), and current Notre Dame kicker Mitch Jeter, a Salisbury-area player (Cannon School, Concord) whose team is still competing in the College Football Playoff.
“We’d go out there and kick,” Smith said.
On the field for N.C. State, he excelled with kickoffs.
Through the seventh game of 2024, Smith had 42 consecutive kicks into the end zone dating to the 2023 regular-season finale. N.C. State didn’t allow a kickoff return until the eighth game of the season, rating in the top 10 nationally in kickoff coverage. All except 11 of Smith’s 76 kickoffs went for touchbacks in his final season.
For part of Smith’s time with the Wolfpack, he was behind Christopher Dunn, who won the county’s top kicking award in 2022. But Smith had his first chance at place kicking with Dunn exiting with an injury in a September 2022 home game against Connecticut, Smith kicked a 40-yard field goal and missed from 47 yards.
This fall, with starting placekicker Kanoah Vinesett out with an injury, Smith had a full day against Stanford, booting a field goal, eight extra points and handling kickoffs in N.C. State’s 59-28 home victory.
“I was extremely worn out by the end of that one,” he said.
By then, his stock had risen with the Wolfpack.
“Happy for him to get in the game and be 100 percent and help the team win,” N.C. State coach Dave Doeren said of the Stanford game. “Collin did a good job stepping up when we needed him. Collin is a guy that no matter what you need he tries to do it for you. He has been a kickoff weapon. In the game, we had a few crazy kicks that came off his foot. I’m glad he finished the way he did. We needed him to have a deep kick after the one penalty that we shouldn’t have had. Bonehead play by one of our guys. Collin (has been) a weapon on kickoffs.”
There was one more chance as a place kicker in November. Smith had been dubbed as having the strongest leg on the team, so he was summoned for the final play with the Wolfpack trailing host Georgia Tech by 30-29 in November. He was wide left on a 58-yard attempt.
“I was sort of told to be ready for end-of-half or end-of-game situations,” Smith said. “That was big because they trusted me to go out there and at least give it a shot.”
Smith graduated from Eastern Guilford in 2019, playing under now-former Wildcats football coaches Doug Robertson and Joe Glass. He also played baseball and, for one season, soccer.
He began his time on N.C. State’s team as a walk-on before earning a scholarship.
Smith, who turns 24 in February, will put the disappointment of N.C. State’s 6-7 season that ended with a December 28 loss to East Carolina in the Military Bowl in Annapolis, Maryland, behind him.
He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with concentrations in operations and supply chain management in 2023 and earned a Master of Business Administration in December.
He said he’s looking for employment in construction or contracting industries, perhaps in a sales role. His parents, Tamara and Claude Smith, and brother Cameron Smith are all N.C. State graduates.
