Mitchell kicker-punter attracting high-level D-I interest

The life of a place kicker can often be the most unrewarding and most easily vilified of any roster position on a football team.

Split the uprights and it's a pat on the back for doing the job you're in there for. Start hearing teeth-gnashing mentions of "wide right" or "shank" and you quickly become the goat; somehow the sole reason for the team's 28-point defeat.

Much of the time, the less your name is mentioned, the better. Not exactly glamorous and almost to the point where it's a wonder why anyone would even bother putting themselves in such a situation.

J.W. Mitchell High junior Codi Folsom is starting to pull in acronym after acronym, though, to explain the reasoning.

LSU. UF. UM. In the world of college athletics, those letters speak for themselves. The Tigers, Gators and Hurricanes are all taking a minute to look at the kid from Trinity as perhaps their future leg.

"It kind of caught me off guard," Folsom said of the wave of Division I interest that began pouring in after this season's first game. "I have D-I schools just coming at me as the first ones and I never thought I'd be able to get that opportunity."

LSU has already mentioned potential scholarship-athlete talk, and Miami invited him to attend a home game. In addition, Folsom has received some sort of attention from Nebraska, Cincinnati and Harvard.

Since many college kickers and punters are nonscholarship athletes or walk-ons, the attention Folsom is garnering is impressive.

And while Folsom is amazed by the letters from colleges starting to pile up, Mustangs Coach Brian Wachtel isn't really surprised at all.

"I'm not shocked because he's got a leg, he's got great range," Wachtel said. "He's a junior that's hitting touchbacks, that's hitting 40-yard field goals, and that is only going to get stronger next season, too."

Folsom, who has been kicking for the varsity since his freshman year and was part of Mitchell's 2009-2010 state championship soccer team, is continuing to gain leg strength from year to year. A large part of that progress comes from attending seven kicking camps in the past year. In addition, he was one of only four kickers invited to the opening of the IMG Madden Football Academy in Bradenton.

This season Folsom is 3-for-5 on field goal attempts and hit his career-long best, 42 yards, during the Mustangs' spring game. He's driven home 55-yarders in practice. Equally impressive and important for the team, Wachtel said, is Folsom's 17 touchbacks on 29 kickoffs, which takes much pressure off the coverage team.

Growing upon those numbers - Folsom said he wants to get to 80 percent field-goal accuracy and be averaging 40-plus yards per punt - will only keep D-I letterheads pulling out of envelopes that flow into the Mitchell Football mailbox.

All that's nice, but the junior said his primary focus remains on what his performance means for his team right now.

"I really feel like my teammates and coaches have trust and confidence in me. That's the main thing, I want to be able to help out my team and just be there for them."