Emmet Kenney keeping consistency at the kicker position going for Stanford football

Dylan Grausz | Sep 11, 2024

Oct 21, 2023; Stanford, California, USA; Stanford Cardinal place kicker Emmet Kenney (13) before the game against the UCLA Bruins at Stanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

After Stanford saw star kicker Joshua Karty leave for the NFL, questions started to arise as to what the kicking situation would look like for Stanford football in 2024, with Karty having provided both security and consistency during his entire Cardinal tenure and developing the reputation of being an automatic three points whenever called upon to attempt a kick. But through two games this season, it appears that the Cardinal will experience more of the same fortunes as senior kicker Emmet Kenney has impressed during the early stages of the 2024 campaign.

Joining the team in 2021, Kenney saw limited action from 2021-2023 with Karty entrenched as the starting kicker but after he completed his final season last year, it left the job open for Kenney and so far in his first year as the starter, he has been dominant, not having missed a single kick as he has gone a perfect 4-for-4 on field goals and 8-for-8 on extra points. 

“Emmet Kenney has been exceptional, I mean he’s really been exceptional,” head coach Troy Taylor said after the win over Cal Poly when talking about the special teams. “Yeah, special teams was a definite win for us, and I felt like it was last week, too.”

In week one against TCU, Kenney went 2-for-2 on field goals and 3-for-3 on extra points while hitting his long of 45, while against Cal Poly, he again went 2-for-2 on field goals with a long of 43 while converting all five of his extra point attempts. 

Before this year, Kenney never once attempted a field goal and only attempted three extra points, but was trusted with the starting role pretty early on in training camp, with only true freshman AJ Seidler being the only other kicker on the roster. Showing quickly that he has a big leg, with his longest make so far this year coming from 45 yards out, the Cardinal can have some comfort knowing that they will get three points out of Kenney.

A five-star kicker according to Kohl’s Kicking Camps coming out of high school, Kenney shined at Shanley High School in Fargo, North Dakota where in 2018 he helped lead his school to a state championship and in 2019 and 2020, he was named the North Dakota Special Teams Player of the Year. Finishing his career at Shanley as the school’s all-time leading scorer, Kenney left as a legend. With his early performances as Stanford’s new starting kicker, he could end up joining Karty as another legendary kicker to come out of Stanford University.