The Jonathan Smith era was a dark time in Michigan State football history. Nine wins over a two-year span following a shameful end to the Mel Tucker era caused most Spartan fans to become numb to the perennial fall pain that the program inflicted.
It did, however, provide us with some gems.
There were guys like Nick Marsh (now off to Indiana) and Jordan Hall who really carried both sides of the ball during the Smith era. And then there were guys like Ryan Eckley and Jonathan Kim who carried the special teams units. All of them stood out during the Smith era and now all are finding success after the forgettable two-year tenure.
Marsh is now playing for the reigning national champs, Hall is gearing up to lead the defense back to the golden age under Max Bullough, Eckley was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens, and Kim was signed by the Bears after the 2025 NFL Draft before getting waived in August of 2025.
Kim has since found a new home in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and he’s teammates with another former Michigan State star, Malcolm Bell.
On Monday night, he kicked his first field goal for his new team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, from 45 yards out. Sure, it was just a preseason game, but it looks like he’s found his groove again. He’s still fighting to win that starting kicker job, but I’d be shocked if he didn’t considering he was Mr. Consistent at Michigan State.
He was 19-for-21 on field goal attempts in his final season at MSU under Smith.
I have a feeling he’ll find his way back to the NFL soon.
Jonathan Kim is one of the most underrated Spartans ever
Call this dumb, call it a hot take, call it whatever you want, but Kim will go down as one of the most underrated Spartans ever — or at least in my lifetime.
There are plenty of underrated Spartans who I could spend all day speaking on but when it comes to special teams, I think Kim is going to be forever overlooked in a Michigan State uniform because of the era that he played in. He was on two very forgettable Michigan State teams that missed bowl games and we didn’t see him as much as other teams that score a ton of points.
Kim was nearly automatic, hitting over 90 percent of his attempts as a senior. He was also 7-for-11 from over 50 yards in his two-year Spartan career and 18-of-24 from 40-plus. He was a model of consistency in terms of placekickers and it was kind of shocking that he didn’t catch on in the NFL early on. There’s still time for that.
Kim went from having just one field goal attempt (a miss) in his first three years at North Carolina to making 32-of-40 in two years at Michigan State.
You don’t hear it often with kickers, but Kim was a fun watch.
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