Noah Ruggles is an unlikely hero for Ohio State for many reasons, not the least of which is that he's a kicker.
He played soccer until the spring of his sophomore year inhigh schoolwhen he finally started to focus onfootball. With such a short resume, although he wanted to play for Ohio State, a scholarship offer never materialized.
He joined North Carolina's program, made two extra points his redshirt freshman season in 2018, took over the starting job the next year and made19 of 27 field goal attempts, with a long of 49 yards, while connectingon all 45 of his extra point attempts.
But in 2020, Ruggles lost the starter's job to Furman transfer Grayson Atkins and was thus only called upon for onesuccessful extra point against Western Carolina.
Ruggles said being benched caused him to do some soul searching, and he entered the transfer portal, ending up at OSU.
The grad student is now 16for 16on field goal attempts, eight of those coming in Ohio State's victories over Penn State and Nebraska. His long is 46yards, and he is perfect on 57extra points.
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Week 2:Cody Simon could be OSU's No. 1 singer, he's definitely Kobe Bryant's No. 1 fan
Week 3:Bryson Shaw might be Ohio State's funniest player, no joke
Week 4:Jesse Mirco is Ohio State's country music fan, not from this country
Week 5: Cam Brown was bowling before his Ohio State playing career took him to bowl games
Week 6:Jaxon Smith-Njigba opens up about the challenges of college life
Week 7: Marcus Williamson is Ohio State's philosopher defensive back
Week 8: Emeka Egbuka is a wordly and wise wide receiver
Week 9:Terajda Mitchell is the fashion expert of the Ohio State Buckeyes
Week 10: Antwuan Jackson is the OSU 'Hercules' who also feeds the homeless
Learn more about Noah Ruggleswith this Columbus Dispatch Q&A.
Meet Ohio State football kicker Noah Ruggles
I saw the commercial of you with the Columbus Crew.
We had a little thing where we got to meet the players and see the facilitiesand stuff, and it was a really cool experience, especially with my soccer roots. I had a really fun time. I got to play a little soccer with the team, and I thought that was really cool. I got to see the locker room, and they had a little jersey in there with our name on it. So that was a great experience. Really cool.
And I imagine you made the others look bad, because as much as I appreciate C.J. Stroud, I can't imagine him juggling the soccer ball the way you can?
Yeah. Yeah. They were trying. But I kind of fit in with the Columbus Crew more than our guys fromthefootball team.
How are you fitting inin Columbus after being in Florida and then North Carolina?
I just keep moving north.
You're going to end up in Canada some day.
Yeah. I like it here a lot. This place is awesome. A lot of good restaurants. I like that part. I don't know. I like it here. It's different, and it's definitely growing. You can tell. And there's a lot to do.
Jesse (Mirco) tells me you all try to do the accent. Is this true?
I think most of the time I'm talking to Jessein an Australian accent more than I am my regular voice. I just, I think it's funny. I think he thinks it's funny. It's more so like, 'Oi, mate.'That's probably my favorite thing. I always just say 'oi,' because that's like his way of saying, 'hey' or 'what's up?' So I think that's fun. And actually my roommate for all of fall camp and traveling for when I was a freshman at UNC, he was a 29-year-old sophomore from Australia, so this isn't my first go-around.
So what have you learned about Australiafrom them?
I couldn't even tell you. You'd probably have to ask Jesse. He'd give you a better answer.
He said the most interesting thing isthey don't actually have dangerous animals everywhere you go.
That isright. He did mention that, and I don't know if I believe him. They have big spiders. That's what I've heard. Like, spiders bigger than the size of your hand. And I'm OK on that. I'll pass.
What is your greatestfear? Is it spiders?
I hate snakes. They're weird. They don't have arms. And they can sneak up on you. Like, North Carolina I had a trail behind my house by a river, and I've seen some big snakes there. It's weird. I lived on a lake growing up in Florida, and all those years — 16 years we lived in that house — I saw a snake once or twice. Go to North Carolina live in this house for two years, and I see four snakes on that trail. It's like, 'Gee.' It's scary. I hate them.
So if you had your choice of where to live, where would it be?
I really enjoy the beach. I surf a lot, so I probably would have to pick somewhere in Hawaii, if I could pick anywhere.
You surf? Where did you pick that up?
Florida. It's rare that the Gulf Coast would get waves, which is where I was from, but they would come out every now and then if you would get lucky. But two hours and thirty minutes straight shot across Florida, you have Cocoa Beach and Melbourne and my brother actually lived there a couple years ago, so I would go stay with him on my breaks from football. Me and my buddies would always go on the water, and that's my favorite way to spend my time.
What's the coolest thing you can do on a surfboard?
Oh, man. I can't do too many cool things. I don't know if I can answer that. It's just fun being out there. Like catching waves, riding the waves, and usually the waves aren't that great on the east coast of Florida. But I used to surf in North Carolina too. It's the same drive, straight across to Wrightsville Beach is where I would surf. Some days are good. Some days are bad. But you make the most of it. Places like Hawaii and California have more ofa luxury where there's always good waves, so that would be the dream place one day.
You can play soccer. You can play football. You can surf. Is there anything you can't do?
I would say I'm a pretty well-rounded athlete, but there's definitely things I cannot do. Like I love to golf, but I'm not the best golfer out there, but I love to work on it and just continue to get better, and that's probably my favorite way to spend time other than at the beach.
I read a quote from you where you said you learned a lot about yourself this past year. What did you learn?
I would say that quote just dives deeper into kicking and my mindset with that and just how I approached it. When I wasn't playing last year at UNC, I got to really mess with my mindset and see what worked for me what didn't. Because for whatever reason I wasn't playing, I just said, 'Screw it.I'm going to figure out what works for me.' And through my time in the transfer portal, I continued to put in the work, kept that same mindset that was working for me, and it's kept working for me till now.
There's this stigma about specialists being eccentric to the point where I feel like you're often asked to do stupid human tricks. So with that being said, what's your stupid human trick.
Oh, god. I couldn't tell you off the my head. If you spent enough time with me, I'm sure you could figure something out asa stupid human trick. But we have a lot of downtime on our hands, and we spend a lot more time with each other than other position groups when they're in meetings and stuff. We're not goofing around, but we're together doing things. I think that's why specialists are known as the more "out-there" type of people when it comes to a football team. It's similar at UNC and my specialists groups compared to how we are here. Just a wide range of people of personalities, but it's all good. It's fun.
Can you tell me about grandpa? Because I know he's one of the reasons you're happy to be at Ohio State.
He worked hard all his life. He didn't grow up with money or anything, and he had this place — I don't know if it was in Steubenville or not — but it was a car parking area where they would pay him in coins. And he would go home and count the coins every night. Eventually, fast-forward 30, 40 years, he was buying tickets. He had season tickets one year, I think, to here. I knew he flew to Arizona for one of the big bowl games. He flew to some big games for sure when I wasyoung. ...Just knowing that he was always a big-time Ohio State fan. ... That's something I'll never forget. He loved the Buckeyes, and he loved this football program.
Do you have family in Ohio still?
So my whole mom's side of the family, my grandma too, they all live in Steubenville, Ohio. And all my cousins and aunts and uncles on that side.
And you mentioned a brother. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
I have one older brother, Michael. ... He played high school football for one year, earned a Division I scholarship to punt at the University of Texas El Paso, so that's kind of where the football thing started for me, seeing him go and do that. One of the first times I ever kicked, I was kicking inthe UTEP stadium, which is the Sun Bowl, and I was hitting like 50 yarders with the kicker at UTEP, and I was like, 'Man, I can do this. This is surreal.' And I thought it was so cool to be out there in that stadium and see him do it and everything that came with it. So that's how it started for me. ... This offseason, when I wasn't playing anymore when I was in the transfer portal,I'd ask him to come out with me every now and then. He'd bring his dog. One of my Twitter videos, you can see the dog fetching the balls for me and stuff. So we always had fun out there.
I'm glad you mentioned your Twitter feed because I saw the video of you making two 60-yardersin a row, and you had tagged every single coach...
Yeah. That was at thepoint in theprocess where I really had nothing to lose, and I just wanted to get my name out there, and I honestly want to say that might be how I got noticed here, just from people retweeting it and putting it out there. Like, I don't tweet anything anymore. Ever since I committed to here, I haven't really posted any tweets. I'm not really big into that social media thing. But at that point, I needed to. I needed to get my name out there. I had nothing to lose.
What's your major here?
I'm doing sports coaching, master's of sports coaching. My goal in 15, 20 years would be to train specialized athletes, like have a gym of my own and train kickers, punters, snappers, golfers, pitchers; because they're all specialized positions where they need to be trained differently, and I think a lot of college programs don't realize that. Have a gym, have field...
In Hawaii.
Yeah. That would work. That would work. That's what I'm saying. I could go anywhere I want and have a gym and I could train local guys because it's just stuff I'm knowledgeable about, and I would love to do it.
