West Virginia’s kicking job is still up for grabs, and Rich Rodriguez isn’t pretending otherwise.
What looked like Nate Flower’s long shot after the Mountaineers brought in two transfer kickers has turned into a real three-way fight. Rodriguez said the competition remains completely open, with Flower, Jack Cassidy and Peter Notaro all still in the mix.
“That is probably one position where we are still…you talk about legitimate competition…big Jack (Cassidy) has the strongest leg, but Nate (Flower) has done a great job. He’s been really consistent.
And Peter (Notaro) has been banged up most of the summer, so he’s kind of catching up. If you were to ask right now who would kick the 35-yard field goal today, I’m really not being coy; I don’t know.
It’s one of the three. It’s wide-open competition.”
Flower, a Fairmont, WV native, handled kickoff duties for a good stretch of the 2025 season and finished with 11 touchbacks on 24 kicks, good for 45.8 percent.
Cassidy, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound transfer from Western Kentucky, still looks like the prototype leg in the group. He attempted only three field goals last season, but all three came from 40 yards or longer, including two from 50-plus, and he made every one of them.
Notaro arrived from Alabama after one season in Tuscaloosa and didn’t get a field goal try as a freshman. He did go 5-for-5 on PATs, though, and he remains a factor despite missing a chunk of the offseason.
The upside for West Virginia is simple: there are options, and each one can handle a different piece of the special teams puzzle. That means the Mountaineers may not need to force one kicker into every role, and all three could end up sharing the load.
With the opener less than three weeks away, this battle may not be settled anytime soon. It could easily carry into the season and stretch all the way to the end of September, when West Virginia begins Big 12 Conference play.
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For WVU, the interest here is not just about a promising freshman making a few nice plays in camp. It is about whether Latimer can settle into a real role as the clear No. 2 back and give the offense a reliable second wave behind Cook. The projections around him point to a player who could be more than a change-of-pace option, and his style has already made him one of the more intriguing developments of the preseason, even if the real proof will have to come once the games start. [Read more 🡒]
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WVU Football Finally Has A Better Shot To Keep Its Core Together
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Bakers comments point to a quieter but important part of the Mountaineers offseason: the effort to hold on to players the staff believes can shape the next wave of success. The school has already pushed the budget higher again with retention in mind, a sign that the emphasis is no longer just on catching up but on staying competitive for its own talent. For WVU, the challenge now is turning that improved position into continuity, and that makes the players expected to anchor the future even more valuable. [Read more 🡒]