By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Mitchell Hayden “Mitch” Jeter has come a long way from his youthful days as a soccer star at Salisbury Academy, and his journey could take him to the NFL.

Jeter, who transferred from South Carolina to Notre Dame for his final college season, will turn 23 on Aug. 27. He has focus, accuracy, consistency and leg strength and is ranked as high as third on the lists compiled by experts that rank kickers who will be available for the 2025 NFL Draft.

Even if you’re the third-best kicker in the country, that still doesn’t guarantee being drafted — very few kickers actually are draft picks in a seven-round draft — but he’s certain to get an opportunity in an NFL camp.

You may have heard Jeter’s story before, but it’s worth repeating, because football jumped out of nowhere for him.

Jeter was part of Salisbury Academy’s Class of 2016 — Salisbury Academy goes through eighth grade — and moved on to high school at Concord’s Cannon School, with his athletic dreams still firmly built around his speed and skill on soccer fields.

Jeter was a sophomore at Cannon School on an autumn Sunday in 2017 when a friend, Blake Clark, a student at Salisbury High, and Jeter got so fired up after watching a Carolina Panthers game that they headed over to Catawba College to “play around with a football.”

They decided to kick a few and Jeter, a gifted soccer athlete, was drilling 40-yard field goals with no problem. Clark told him he needed to be kicking for his school team. Jeter followed up on that suggestion.

Cannon School didn’t have a lot of football players, but by combining their talent pool with Concord First Assembly, the two private schools had sufficient numbers to field a competitive squad called the Cabarrus Warriors. The youngsters benefited from high-level coaching from former Ledford High, Western Carolina University and Carolina Panthers fullback Brad Hoover.

The 2017 football season was well under way when Jeter asked the coach for a chance to join the team. Hoover watched Jeter kick and found him a uniform.

Football started for Jeter there, but soccer was still the priority, at least for another six months.

That’s when Jeter began training with Dan Orner Kicking and Punting in Charlotte. Orner kicked a flurry of field goals and extra points for the UNC Tar Heels back in the day and made a career of his craft as one of the experts in a growing kicking industry. Orner is a guru with clients ranging from high school to the NFL.

Jeter was a better athlete than most kickers — he has run 4.7 40s — and he has more leg power than most, so he progressed quickly. Orner recommended Jeter for a major camp in Atlanta, he performed admirably, and suddenly he was nationally ranked. He never looked back.

By Jeter’s junior year of high school he was getting offers from universities such as North Carolina, South Carolina and East Carolina, although they were PWOs — preferred walk-on offers — at that point. He didn’t commit, betting on himself to be worthy of a full scholarship as a senior.

He attracted lots of attention as a senior when he launched field goals of 55 and 57 yards for the Warriors and sent kickoffs sailing over the end zone. One website that ranked high school kickers listed him 12th nationally. There were three full scholarship offers — Furman, East Carolina and South Carolina.

Both of his parents went to East Carolina, but South Carolina — and the magical atmosphere of SEC football — was hard to turn down. Jeter accepted the challenge.

It meant waiting his turn behind Parker White, who was setting school records for the Gamecocks.

His first two seasons at South Carolina, Jeter kicked only two PATs. His job was limited to kickoffs.

In 2022 and 2023, he handled the placekicking as well as the kickoffs and performed at a high level, leading South Carolina in scoring both seasons.

Jeter has understood since his high school days that the short field goals count the same as the long ones, and he maintained a laser focus on every kick. He was 73-for-76 on career PATs and 23-for-25 on field goals. He made every field goal he ever attempted for the Gamecocks that was under 50 yards, and he was 3-for-5 from beyond midfield. He had touchbacks on 61 percent of his kickoffs.

He kicked field goals of 51 and 53 yards in the 2022 game with Georgia State. That’s a claim to fame as no other South Carolina kicker ever had two of 50-plus in the same game. He kicked a game-winning field goal against Clemson that will provide him with a permanent place in the lore of USC football.

In a 2023 game with Missouri, Jeter kicked four field goals to account for all of the Gamecocks’ points. He recovered his own onside kick in the game with UNC.

He graduated with a degree in biological sciences last December and plans to eventually follow his father into the medical field.

Jeter entered the transfer portal on Nov. 30, had a lot of options, and chose Notre Dame at least as much for his next step academically as for football.

Notre Dame has had graduate student kickers before and the team has received them warmly, so there is a certain comfort level there for Jeter.  There are some local ties. Jonathan Doerer, who kicked for Notre Dame from 2019-21 was a product of the Dan Orner kicking program. So is current Notre Dame punter Bryce McFerson, who was a high school opponent of Jeter’s.

Jeter (5-10, 197) won an Outstanding Student Athlete Award in 2022 and was a regular member of the honor roll. He was South Carolina’s Special Teams MVP in 2023.

Jeter’s last fling with soccer was with Cannon School, where he was all-conference and all-region.

He still loves soccer and is grateful that the sport led him to his football career.

Notre Dame opens with a high-profile game at Texas A&M on Aug. 31.