By Bo Carter, NFF Correspondent
Missouri senior kicker Jeff Wolfert mostly fits the typical profile of a college kicker.
The 2008 semifinalist for the Lou Groza Collegiate Place-Kicker Award, presented by the FedEx Orange Bowl, has jumped off a 75-foot bridge in the Ozarks for thrills and was a former soccer player and Missouri diving team competitor with just enough swagger to think he might make it in football.
When Tigers’ head coach Gary Pinkel sent out an all-points-bulletin for a kicker to help ease some special team woes, an aspiring 2005 walk-on from the MU diving team decided to give the position a shot. This happened even though the Overland Park, Kan., resident had played one football game as a senior in 2003 and broke a hip that sidelined him for the remainder of the campaign.
“I played soccer for three years in high school (freshmen through junior year),” Wolfert said, “and then decided to go out for the football team my senior year. Soccer and football are in the same season in Kansas, and we were not allowed to do both. My football career in high school consisted of one game. I went 1-for-2 in extra points and on my first kickoff I broke my hip as I was swinging through the ball. Season over…”
But the standout at OP’s Blue Valley West HS had a great history of athleticism from placing in the Top Three in the Kansas state diving championships for three consecutive seasons and placing in both the Big 12 Conference and NCAA Zone diving meets as a standout in 2004-05.
He had hopes of performing on a much bigger gridiron stage.
“When I came to college at Mizzou,” Wolfert recalled, “I still had a dream of playing football. I knew that I was good at kicking just by kicking with my father Hank at practice fields. My experience actually on a team was so limited, I had no idea if there was actually something worthwhile there. Instead of just wondering if I was any good, I decided to try and arrange for a time to get seen by one of the coaches. After coach David Yost (MU’s quarterbacks and kicking coach) saw me kick, he offered me a walk-on spot. What made this whole ordeal difficult was the fact that if I wanted to act on the walk-on opportunity, I was going to have to give up my diving scholarship and diving career. So I really had to give up what I loved to do in order to have this opportunity to kick for Mizzou, and there were definitely no guarantees going into it.”
While Wolfert waited in the wings as a football redshirt in 2005, his time finally came in 2006. If the media had a National Newcomer of the Year Award, the Kansas City area resident certainly could have been a top candidate.
With one game of competitive kicking experience under his belt, he hit 90 percent of his field goal tries (18-of-20) and connected on all 45 points-after-touchdown attempts to set a precedent for his success. He went from being a walk-on from the diving team to a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award and Missouri’s Walk-On Player of the Year Award.
Wolfert has kept that consistency throughout 2007 and the majority of 2008 as he prepares for a third consecutive bowl trip (bids decided on Dec. 7) and a run at a possible second Mizzou Big 12 North Division title in succession after the Tigers won their first-ever in ’07.
In fact, he is on track to break the NCAA all-kick career record for accuracy by UCLA’s John Lee, who connected on 93.3 percent of his PAT and field goal tries from 1982-85. Wolfert is a spectacular 215-of-225 on his career placements for 95.6 percent as he comes closer to finishing a football Cinderella story. He has 163 consecutive PAT kicks and is 52-of-62 on career field goals entering Saturday’s contest against Kansas State.
Already in 2008, he is 13-of-17 on field goals and 51-of-51 on PATs after nailing 21-of-25 field goals and 67 PATs last season as a junior. Wolfert set a Big 12 mark with 64 consecutive made kicks (48 extra points and 16 field goals) to cap a consensus all-conference season along with honorable mention All-America kudos.
The second-time Groza semifinalist takes it all in stride and has no regrets about concentrating on football when he could have starred nationally on the diving board or possibly in soccer. He also has been part of Missouri’s most successful senior class in history already with 34 victories since 2005 and more good days ahead.
“It really has been quite an experience to be apart of the rejuvenation of Mizzou’s football program,” he stated. “I feel like the senior class has been really close, and we have a lot of playmakers that have been able to lead by example and lead vocally. The last few years the program has really turned around and it is enjoyable to be apart of something that is so much bigger than yourself.”
An Academic All-Big Conference honoree as well, Wolfert enjoys sitting back and waiting for the opportunity to make a last-minute field goal to decide the Tigers’ recent 31-28 league victory at Baylor.
His feel-good story and desire literally to walk the football “plank” to try his hand at kicking (and with many laborious hours on the practice fields) have paid handsome dividends for Missouri’s special kicker Jeff Wolfert.
NFF
