Japanese kicker draft buzz
- Japanese kicker Hiroyasu Matsuzawa is being discussed as a possible first Japanese NFL draftee in tonight's draft. (x.com) - He was a top-three finalist for the national college kicker award this season, according to recent reports. (x.com) - Social coverage frames his potential selection as a historic moment and a sign of growing international representation in the NFL. (x.com)
Kansei Matsuzawa, a place-kicker from Tokyo and the University of Hawaiʻi, entered Thursday’s National Football League draft with a chance to become the first Japanese player selected. (nfl.com) (hawaiiathletics.com) The 2026 draft opened Thursday, April 23, in Pittsburgh and runs through April 25 over seven rounds and 257 picks. Matsuzawa was in California this week as he prepared for the process after finishing his college career at Hawaiʻi. (operations.nfl.com) (sports.yahoo.com) Matsuzawa was one of three finalists for the 2025 Lou Groza Award, college football’s national award for the top place-kicker, alongside Georgia Tech’s Aidan Birr and Oklahoma’s Tate Sandell. He did not win; the award went to Sandell on December 12, 2025. (lougrozaaward.com 1) (lougrozaaward.com 2) At Hawaiʻi, Matsuzawa was listed at 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds and arrived from Hocking College in Ohio after growing up in Tokyo and attending Makuhari Sogo High School in Japan. The school said he tied a 43-year Football Bowl Subdivision record by making his first 25 field-goal attempts of the 2025 season. (hawaiiathletics.com) His 2025 season turned him from a specialist into one of Hawaiʻi’s most decorated recent players. The university said he became the program’s first consensus All-American after first-team selections from the Associated Press, Walter Camp Foundation and American Football Coaches Association. (hawaii.edu) (hawaiiathletics.com) The attention around Matsuzawa also reflects a narrower piece of National Football League history: Japan has produced players who reached camps and practice squads, but no Japanese-born player had made a final 53-man roster, according to a recent Sporting News report carried by Yahoo Sports. A draft selection would not settle that question, but it would move Matsuzawa into a category no Japanese player has reached before. (sports.yahoo.com) His route to this point was unusual even by kicker standards. ESPN and Hawaiʻi said Matsuzawa taught himself kicking through YouTube videos, then learned English after landing at junior college in Ohio before transferring to Hawaiʻi. (espn.com) (hawaii.edu) Whether Matsuzawa hears his name called Thursday, Friday or Saturday, his case rests on production that National Football League teams can measure: award-finalist status, All-America honors and one of the most accurate seasons in college football. The draft tracker began updating Thursday night, and any selection would put a concrete date on a long-running first for Japanese football. (nfl.com) (lougrozaaward.com)
