Going into the 2023 football season, LSU Wire will be looking at each player listed on the Tigers’ roster.
Over the preseason, each profile will cover where the player is from, how recruiting websites rated them coming out of high school, and what role they will play for Brian Kelly this season.
We continue our look at the specialists on this roster with [autotag]Damian Ramos[/autotag], who held down the starting placekicker job for the entirety of the 2022 season as a redshirt freshman in replacement of [autotag]Cade York[/autotag]. He appears likely to do so once again in 2023.
Damian Ramos Preseason Player Profile
Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland
Ht: 6-2
Wt: 186
247Sports Composite Ranking
Unrated (Five-star per Chris Sailer Kicking)
Class in 2022: Redshirt Freshman
Career Stats
| Year | G | FGM | FGA | FG% | Long | XP | XPA | XP% |
| 2022 | 14 | 10 | 14 | 71.4% | 47 | 55 | 57 | 96.5% |
Depth Chart Overview
Though specialists generally aren’t rated by the typical recruiting sites, Ramos was listed as a five-star (out of six) coming out of St. Paul’s High School in Baltimore by Chris Sailer Kicking.
That roughly corresponds to a player who is capable of starting at an FBS-caliber school as a freshman. Though he didn’t see the field in 2021, he became the starter last season, beating out [autotag]Ezekiel Mata[/autotag] and Northwestern transfer [autotag]Trey Finison[/autotag].
It wasn’t a stellar year for Mata, who went 10-of-14 on the year on field goal attempts. He missed just two of 57 extra points, one of which was blocked on the final play of the game in the loss to Florida State.
He saw some action on kickoffs as well, though [autotag]Nathan Dibert[/autotag] was the primary kick-off specialist. That dynamic seems likely to continue this fall.