Bryce Baringer (born April 26, 1999) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

punter for the

Michigan State Spartans The Michigan State Spartans are the athletic teams that represent Michigan State University. The school's athletic program includes 23 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Spartan warrior named Sparty, and the school colors are green and whi ...

Early life and high school

Baringer grew up

Waterford, Michigan Waterford Township is a charter township in the geographic center of Oakland County, Michigan, United States. In 2020, the population of Waterford Township was 70,565. Communities Waterford Township has five unincorporated communities: * Cl ...

and attended Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy. He initially signed a

National Letter of Intent National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ...

to play college football at

Southern Illinois Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...

, but was granted a release and committed to play at

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

as a preferred walk-on.

College career

Baringer began his college career at Illinois, where he redshirted his true freshman season. After the season, he transferred to

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. Baringer enrolled at Michigan State and originally did not plan on continuing his football career until he was contacted by the

Spartans Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: wikt:Σπάρτη, Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the nam ...

coaching staff. He took part in two tryouts, but was not offered a spot on the roster after either one. Baringer eventually joined the team after punters Jake Hartbarger and Tyler Hunt both suffered injuries during the 2018 season. He played in four games and punted 15 times for an average of 32.4 yards. Baringer was cut by the Spartans entering the 2019 season after the team added Australian punter Jack Bouwmeester to their recruiting class. He continued to practice punting independently and was offered to rejoin the team after Bouwmeester left the team at the conclusion of the season. Baringer entered his redshirt junior season competing with Mitchell Crawford, a graduate transfer from UTEP, but ultimately won the punting job early in the season and averaged 43.6 yards per punt on 37 punts. As a redshirt senior, he punted 59 times for a Michigan State record 48.4 yard average and was named second team All-

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conferen ...

. Baringer used the extra year of eligibility granted to college athletes in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

and returned to Michigan State for a sixth year. He entered his final season ranked as the best punting prospect for the 2023 NFL Draft by ''

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

'' analyst Mel Kiper.

Personal life

Baringer is a close friend of professional golfer James Piot, who was also his roommate at Michigan State.

References

External links

Illinois Fighting Illini bioMichigan State Spartans bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baringer, Bryce 1999 births Living people All-American college football players American football punters Illinois Fighting Illini football players Michigan State Spartans football players People from Waterford, Michigan Players of American football from Michigan