“No matter what happens the rest of this game, Will Stone made a 57 yard field goal to end the first half and they can never take that away.”
4 stories in the last 60 days, from 3 outlets.
Daytona Beach News-Journal Oct 31
Written , before the 2026 season
The storyline around Stone's transfer is almost too on-the-nose for a kicker: a guy who spent four seasons being very good at the half of the job nobody notices, now betting his last year of eligibility on the half everybody remembers. At Texas he was a fixture on kickoffs — 47 games, 300 boots, a 63.2-yard average — but his only placekicking reps came when he went 2-for-2 on extra points in the CFP semifinal against Ohio State. His last competitive field goal, per the UCF coverage, came in high school in 2022. So when he hit the portal in January and special teams coordinator Pete Alamar came calling, the appeal was obvious on both sides: a strong, playoff-tested leg looking for a stage, and a UCF staff that lost Noe Ruelas and needed a new foot.
The wrinkle is that the job isn't his. Stone is in an open competition with redshirt freshman Noah McGough, and the beat consensus out of spring is that neither created separation — Stone has the experience edge, McGough is the unknown, and crucially neither has attempted a field goal in a real college game. Alamar has been blunt that 'no jobs are won in spring,' which is coach-speak for: this goes to August, maybe to September. For Stone the perception is generous (CFP pedigree, a leg coaches rave about) but the production is a blank page — the tension every UCF preview keeps circling.
The forward stake is the cleanest question a kicker can carry into a season: does the leg translate when the snap is for three points instead of a touchback? Stone has spent four years being trusted to do one thing flawlessly and never asked to do the other. 2026 is the year he finds out — starting with whether he even wins the job — if he can be a field-goal kicker at all.
Sources
Play style, written June 30, before the season
No play-by-play percentiles exist for Stone — fitting for a player who has barely placekicked. As a scouting read he's a power leg first: Texas leaned on him purely for kickoffs, where he averaged 63.2 yards on 300 attempts and routinely flipped the field with touchbacks, the kind of raw leg strength coaches don't teach. The open question is touch and repeatability under field-goal conditions — directional accuracy, holds, operation time — because outside of two extra points in a playoff game he has no college field-goal sample at all. He profiles as a high-ceiling, unproven-floor specialist: the leg plays anywhere, the field-goal craft is still theoretical.
UCF’s specialists
from 3 outlets
Daytona Beach News-Journal Oct 31 · 1 outlet
from 4 outlets
Daytona Beach News-Journal Oct 31 · 1 outlet
Sports IllustratedMeet The 2026 UCF Knights: Countdown To Kickoff - No. 15 Will Stone and Preston HallAug 19
Yahoo SportsUCF K Will Stone Wants To Kick for His TeammatesSep 9
On3UCF kicker Will Stone finds his rhythm on and off the fieldSep 10Daytona Beach News-JournalOn3Yahoo SportsSports IllustratedEach week: his team’s game, the stories about him that week, and the week’s biggest news headline.
Stories we tracked, by school.
UCF7 stories2026 to nowMost about: profile and feature, in his words, performance and stat line.
Yahoo SportsUCF Kicker Will Stone Talks Progress On Field GoalsAug 10Yahoo SportsUCF PK Will Stone Wants To Have Great Year for FansAug 17Sports IllustratedMeet The 2026 UCF Knights: Countdown To Kickoff - No. 15 Will Stone and Preston HallAug 19Yahoo SportsUCF K Will Stone Wants To Kick for His TeammatesSep 9On3UCF kicker Will Stone finds his rhythm on and off the fieldSep 10
Texas2 stories2022 to 2025
Locked OnTexas' RB Jerrick Gibson & K Will Stone leave the ProgramOct 14UCF AthleticsSpring Ball Spotlight: Will StoneApr 16Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Nov 4.
Game log · Week-by-week
2026 season · 8 games
Swipe the table sideways for more columns.
| Wk | Opp | PUNT | YDS | AVG | LONG | IN20 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | W 73-6vs Bethune-Cookman | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 2 | L 7-12@ Pittsburgh | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 3 | W 44-30vs Georgia State | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 4 | W 21-13vs TCU | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 5 | L 17-27@ No. 20 Houston | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 6 | L 28-42@ No. 18 Oklahoma State | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 8 | W 39-31vs No. 2 BYU | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 9 | L 9-41vs Baylor | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Total | — | — | — | — | — |
Week 1 · 2026
W 73-6
13 points · 34 long · 100 percent on field goals
Dominant 67-point win at home against Bethune-Cookman.
Season context: team record and system
2026 is in progress.
Coaching lineage · 2022–2026
2 coachesPlayed for 2 head coaches at 2 schools: Steve Sarkisian and Scott Frost.
Next stop · Transfer
Transferred to UCF
