South Carolina’s kicking game finally looks like a weapon, and the player changing that conversation is Malik Orsan.
Against Mississippi State last Saturday, Orsan went a perfect 4-for-4 on field goals, knocking through kicks from 30, 34, 51 and 52 yards. He also became the first kicker to hit two 50-plus-yard field goals in a game since Mitch Jeter did it in 2022. For a program that hasn’t had much to lean on in clutch kicking situations over the past two seasons, that mattered.
Orsan’s path to Columbia wasn’t exactly the heavily recruited, can’t-miss kind. He’s from St.
Louis, Mo., and attended Mary Institute and Country Day. In high school, his longest recorded field goal was 53 yards, and he handled kickoff duties 78 times for 4,483 yards.
After that, the offers didn’t pile up, so he stayed home and enrolled at Southeastern Missouri State University, where he was a backup kicker as a freshman. With limited chances there, he entered the portal.
While he was looking for a new landing spot, Orsan kept working with his coach, six-year NFL veteran Austin Seibert. Seibert helped him with drills and got him on fields to keep him sharp, and he was confident the right opportunity would come.
On X, Seibert wrote, "Malik Orsan is still available and ready to go. One of the purest field goal strikers I've worked with," Seibert said.
Not long after Orsan hit a 65-yard kick on X, he signed with South Carolina. He arrived late to a kicker room that was already pretty crowded, but once he got on campus late in the summer, head coach Shane Beamer quickly took notice.
"He's awesome, I mean that's one thing I just really like about him," Beamer said. "He's just steady and consistent.
There's not a lot of emotion. I think that's a great quality to have as a kicker."
Beamer also pointed to the pressure-packed nature of Orsan’s performance against Mississippi State.
"He was obviously excited to make those kicks that he made (Saturday), especially the two 50 plus yarders," Beamer said. "Coming in during some pressure situations of a 50 yard field goal early in the game and then a 50 plus yard field goal to extend the game there in the fourth quarter when we were trying to make a comeback, is just great. He did a great job."
Mazeo Bennett Jr. was just as impressed.
"Malik is just locked in," Bennett said. "Malik knows his job, and he's gonna go out there and execute.
I'm extremely proud of him for the way that he handled being in there and making those kicks when we needed him. It was a big morale booster for the team in general.
I'm overly proud."
The outing also put Orsan in a rare spot nationally. As a freshman, he became the most recent freshman in the NCAA to make two 50-plus-yard field goals in the same game since LSU’s Cade York in 2019. The recognition followed, too: Orsan was named one of three Lou Groza Stars of the Week, an honor that highlights the best kickers in the country.
In his college debut, Orsan scored a career-high 14 points, accounting for 14 of South Carolina’s 34. He also became just the eighth kicker in program history to make multiple 50-yard field goals in his career.
South Carolina heads to Tuscaloosa this weekend for its first road test in front of nearly 100,000 fans, and there will be plenty to sort through as the Gamecocks try to bounce back and get moving through the rest of their SEC schedule. But one concern has already been answered. At kicker, they’ve got Malik Orsan.
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