BOULDER — When a place-kicker slumps, goalposts look half as wide as they really are. In light of how Colorado has kicked the last two years, coach Dan Hawkins took the vision to another level.
During fall camp, Colorado’s goalposts really are half as wide.
Look at one end of the Buffaloes’ practice field and the goalposts are 9 feet wide. The normal width is 18 feet, 6 inches. That’s even less than half. From a slight angle, it looks as if they’re kicking through a croquet wicket.
“It’s awesome,” senior Aric Goodman said. “Knowing you’re hitting at something that’s half the width of normal uprights, you’ve got to basically thread a needle. It makes your concentration just that much more (important).”
Goodman doesn’t mind the not-so-subtle hint that he needs to merely thread uprights, let alone needles. As starter the last two years, he is 15-for-32. He went 10-for-18 last year after missing eight of his last 10 in 2008.
He’s the one returning starter who’s really fighting for his job. Entering today’s scrimmage at noon, Goodman will fend off challenges from true freshman Justin Castor, the first-team all-state kicker from Arvada West High, and two walk-ons. Junior Marcus Kirkwood, a former all-state soccer player at Faith Christian High, is a transfer from Concordia in Portland, Ore., and true freshman Dillan Freiberg is an all-league pick from Newport Harbor High in Newport Beach, Calif.
The goalposts, which look like upright chopsticks, should help with the separation.
“We started doing it at the start of the summer and it’s been an adjustment,” Castor said. “But when you get to the normal size ones, it looks like high school again. Every time you go back to the normal posts, you feel like you can’t miss.”
Hawkins got the idea from the NFL. The Broncos’ Matt Prater uses it every day.
Special-teams coach Kent Riddle said the four kicker are hitting the narrower goalposts at about an 85 percent clip. They’ll take anything close to that during the season.
The pressure is on Goodman. Ever since he kicked the overtime winner to beat West Virginia on national TV two seasons ago, consistency has evaded him.
He tore his labrum the day before the spring game and he still isn’t quite 100 percent recovered from surgery. Instead of kicking this summer, he read self-help books on the mental part of performance.
Goodman sounds as if he wished he’d heard of the narrow goalposts two years ago.
“At this position, it’s all about makes or misses,” he said. “. . . I’ve had plenty of kicks here that have hit uprights and they count for nothing. When you’re out here and miss they count the same: nothing. You just have to refine it and get better.”
