Taking the soccer player out of the kicker is hard. It’s happening at Boise State
Boise State redshirt senior kicker Colton Boomer has always been good with his feet.
With a last name like Boomer, you seem destined to send a football through the uprights, and he did that first at the University of Central Florida before transferring to Boise State. He lived up to his name last season by hitting a career-long 52-yard field goal for the Broncos.
But for most of his life, Boomer played the other football. In Orlando in the early 2010s, you wouldn’t find Boomer lighting up the Pop Warner fields. No, you’d find a speedy left back on the soccer field with a penchant for running down the wing and cutting the ball onto his right foot to whip crosses and shots toward the back post.
Sometimes Boomer’s shot would find its target. Other times, perhaps not knowing his own strength, the ball would go sailing.
“I wanted to play D-I soccer and do that whole route,” Boomer said Tuesday afternoon.
The only problem? He didn’t enjoy running as much as was required when he hit the full-size soccer fields. By his freshman year of high school, he turned to American football and quickly became a good kicker. That earned him a preferred walk-on spot and eventual scholarship at UCF before he made the jump to Boise State in 2025.
But almost a decade on from his decision to switch from football, he was still carrying that soccer past with him. This spring he’s working hard to shake that off.
“My attack angle to the ball was super soccer-style before,” said Boomer, referring to a player’s body shape being more open at the strike, with the shoulders and chest often facing outward to help with direction and allow the leg to whip around to create more movement.
“I’m trying to narrow it up, because it just gets everything going downfield, and it just leads to a lot more consistency,” he continued.
Football kickers want to keep their shoulders and chest square to the ball when kicking, which ensures better accuracy.
It sounds easy, but even after years of playing and practice, Boomer said he’s still dealing with “birthing pains” as he improves his form. It’s not so much a case that he can’t physically get his body where it needs to be; it’s just losing those years of muscle memory, which also affects one’s mind.
Boomer said he’s been working heavily with the coaching staff to perfect his form ahead of his final college season. He’s also been having regular Zoom sessions with an old coach back in Florida, and often talks with Indianapolis Colts kicker Spencer Shrader, who grew up with Boomer and played at South Florida.
“It’s totally new to me, but I’ve got a good team around me,” Boomer said. “... It’s fun to actually be healthy and just be able to tinker with things.”
It’s taken so long for Boomer to sharpen his form because injury issues have caused him to miss spring practices and fall camp. That happened just last year, when a chronic ankle injury kept him sidelined right up to the start of the regular season.
But the time to tinker is finally paying off, he said.
Boomer went 11-for-15 on field goals last season, with all four misses coming in the 40-49-yard range. He’s looked much better the first few weeks of spring practice, with special teams coordinator Stacy Collins describing Boomer as having an “elite, elite leg.”
The results are showing, too. Fans were on the edge of their seats last season when any kick approached 45-50 yards, even though Boomer went 3-for-3 on FGs of 50 or longer. He said that this year, he’s confident of hitting them from much, much farther.
“I feel like this sounds ridiculous, but 70 (yards) and in is really realistic now,” Boomer said.
“Last year was crazy because there’s so much timing to do. But now I just have to get behind the ball and basically go through. It’s definitely a weird feeling to have that relaxed power and not try to muscle everything.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2026 at 4:00 AM.
