DC Pippin wins OVC special teams player of the week after a four field goal game

SEMO kicker DC Pippin buried four of six field goals against Northwestern State on Sept. 28, accounting for 13 of SEMO’s 19 points this weekend.

Senior kicker DC Pippin began this off-season in the transfer portal of college football. Pippin was not in the portal long until he would return home and stay in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and play his redshirt senior season for the Redhawks.

Pippin had a career year in 2023 for the Redhawks. He was a second-team Big South-OVC Association selection, he led the Redhawks in scoring for the season with sixty-eight points as he went 11-14 kicking field goals (six of them from forty yards or longer) and only missed one of thirty-six of his PATs he kicked as well, he also led the whole Big South-OVC in scoring for the 2023 season and was ranked second in field goal percentage for the season hitting 78.5pct of his field goals in 2023. Three weeks into the young 2024 season and Pippin has a 71.4 field goal percentage and is perfect kicking PATs with twenty-four total points on the season.

Pippin has started red hot this season, against New Mexico State he buried a fifty-three yard field goal, then the very next week hit a thirty-seven yard field goal in double overtime to beat OVC rivals UT Martin, now a four for six game which lead to OVC special teams player of the week.

Pippin missed 2 of his 6 field goal attempts; he explained how he stayed composed throughout the game, even after missing two field goals.

“Just move on to the next kick, my holder Adam (Heston) always reminds me of that as well, just reset and do your job no matter what,” Pippin said.

While kicking is physically challenging, half the battle of kicking is mental preparation. Pippin commented on how he trains for games week by week.

“Honestly what you don’t see is the mental preparation, obviously it’s a very unique position and especially at this level it’s ninety percent mental. The things I do off the field to make sure I am elite there (mentally) is very important in game preparation,” Pippin said.

Northwestern State going into the game at 0-4 being a lower tier opponent Pippin shared how he prepares to have games like this and how he makes clutch kicks like he has all season.

“Going into the game I try to prepare the same every time, like Coach Tuke says no matter who the opponent is, go out there and do your job, so just treat it like it is another game every week,” Pippin said.

Pippin would then share how he overcame the hurricane type conditions with major winds up to 25 MPH and rain against Northwestern State.

“Just something that we had to account for, something we looked at, at practice and we drilled with it and Payton and Adam both did a great job”

Pippin and the Redhawks will travel to EIU next to take on the Panthers in a OVC high stakes matchup that kicks off at 2 p.m.