Player Profile: UFL Legend Jake Bates
- Tyler Doerr
- Apr 7, 2024
- 2 min read
If you didn't know the name Jake Bates before, you do now. He came through in the clutch for the Michigan Panthers in Week 1, drilling a 64-yard field goal not once but twice lifting them to victory over the Saint Louis Battlehawks. Overnight, he became the talk of the football world as he went from just another kicker to UFL legend. Bates is a 25-year-old from
Tomball, Texas played soccer and football at Tomball High School. It won't take long to describe so here are his high school football stats: seven games played, 28 kickoffs, six touchbacks, and 0 for 2 in field goals. Yup, you read that correctly, the man attempted only two field goals in high school and missed them both.
He ended up going to Central Arkansas University where he played soccer at the school for his first two collegiate years of action. There, he played 1,639 minutes over 18 matches, making starts in all 18 matches, finishing with one goal and four shots on target, and having four assists in his career. Then he decided to switch sports and kick it with the football team transferring to Texas State University as a junior, in 2020 he played in 12 games as a kicker on kickoffs, and helped Texas State lead the Sun Belt Conference in kickoff coverage. He averaged 61.6 yards on 60 kickoffs and had 32 kickoffs result in touchbacks where he averaged a net of 42.1 yards per kickoff.
As many college athletes do these days, Jake hit the transfer portal again, this time heading
to SEC country to the University of Arkansas. In Fayetteville, Bates earned First-Team All-SEC honors from the league's coaches as a kickoff specialist in his lone season at Arkansas. He led the SEC and finished fourth in the country with an average of 64.47 yards per kickoff and had an SEC-best 64 touchbacks ranking him third in the country for touchbacks. Jake led all of FBS in touchback percentage with 64 of his 75 kickoffs resulting in a touchback. He also added an onside kick to his repertoire successfully recovering it against Alabama.
Now that you have gotten this far, reread and reflect, did he ever make a field goal? If you are scratching your head right now, no it was not a trick, Jake Bates had not made a single live-game field goal since Junior Varsity ball in high school which was over seven years ago! Pretty mind-blowing stuff if you ask me. When he was needed most, he came through for the Panthers and now has NFL teams asking about him which is probably not what he thought would happen coming into the season. After Michigan's Week 2 defeat at home against the Stallions 20-13, Bates remained perfect and added another 60+ yard field goal along with a 52-yarder later on in the game. Jake Bates is the kind of story that the UFL was made for, I hope he keeps doing what works and finds himself kicking for an NFL team come September! Stay tuned for weekly content and follow @InsideTheUFL on Twitter!
Bates is a fantastic story! If he proves to be consistent he will end up in the NFL and further solidify the need for the UFL; good for fans and good for a proving ground!