Kyle Walmer commits to Wisconsin-Platteville as placekicker
By FRED KRONER
Seventeen months ago, Kyle Walmer had never played in a high school football game.
He was then a sophomore at Mahomet-Seymour High School and experiencing a break from interscholastic sports as COVID-19 caused shutdowns nationally.
And now?
Walmer is the classic illustration that it is never too late to impress college coaches. As his senior year with the Bulldogs is about to start on Friday, he will suit up knowing that he will have a future in football beyond high school.
Walmer recently gave a verbal commitment to join the Wisconsin-Platteville team next year as a placekicker.
The scholarship offer satisfied an objective he has had for years.
“My freshman year was when I originally set the goal to compete at the college level, although at that point it was for soccer and the thought of playing college football hadn’t ever crossed my mind,” Walmer said.
“It has always been a dream of mine to play sports in college, so ever since I started playing, I have always competed with the hope that one day I would be competing at the college level. Ever since I started soccer, it was my goal to play soccer in college, but now that has changed to football and my goal is being accomplished.”
After a period of inactivity in the fall of 2020 – thanks to COVID-19 – Walmer was convinced to give football a shot when the IHSA scheduled an abbreviated spring season in 2021.
“Kicking first got on my radar right before the shortened COVID season when one of my friends told me I should kick for the team since it was a good opportunity to test it out and see how I liked it,” he related. “I knew it was a good option for me since I had a strong leg on the soccer field, and I thought it would transfer over to kicking a football fairly well.
“I decided to go for it and since then I have never looked back. I really just took the opportunity and ran with it.”
He made his high school debut as a kicker on March 19, 2021 and converted his only extra-point attempt in a 21-7 loss at home to fourth-ranked Effingham.
Walmer ended the season making 25 of 28 attempts and averaged more than 48 yards for his 31 kickoffs. M-S ended with a 3-3 record in the spring season.
The introduction to kicking a football was all Walmer needed to pursue the sport.
“After the shortened season, I started going to training camps run by Kohl’s Kicking and The Kicking Coach,” Walmer said, “and realized that I had the potential to continue with kicking and make it something long-term.
“Going into junior year, I hadn’t had any contact from college coaches and just was focused on the team and having a good season. Following our season, I continued to work on kicking and getting stronger in the weight room, also attending a few more camps to get my name out there a little bit more.”
His junior season, which started barely four months after his sophomore season ended, helped him get more recognition.
Walmer booted 48 extra points along with one field goal for an 11-1 M-S team that advanced to the Class 5A state quarterfinals.
His point total ranks second all-time for kickers in a single season at M-S. If he matches that total again as a senior, he will break the Bulldogs’ all-time career record for points scored by a kicker (136), held by the late Matthew Prather.
When the 6-foot, 230-pound Walmer suits up – the Bulldogs open on Friday (Aug. 26) at home against Morton – he will be wearing uniform No. 89 as a tribute to the school’s top career placekicker.
“I picked No. 89 because of Matthew Prather,” Walmer said. “He was a very close family friend, who played soccer and kicked for Mahomet while my older brothers were in high school, the oldest one being good friends with Matthew.
“He passed away unexpectedly in the spring of 2016. All throughout my kicking journey, he has been someone I have looked up to because I know how awesome it would have been to watch him kick in college and then follow in his footsteps down the same path.”
Walmer’s initial recruitment followed an unusual path: Social media.
“Platteville first got in touch with me through Twitter when the special teams coach reached out to me about getting out to visit and possibly kicking in front of their coaches while I was there,” he said. “I didn’t end up being able to kick while I was there, but had an amazing visit and immediately put Platteville at the top of my list because of my interactions with the coaches and experience on the visit.”
Before settling on Wisconsin-Platteville, Walmer also visited Augustana, Illinois Wesleyan University and McKendree College.
“I decided on Platteville because of the atmosphere and interactions I had on my visits,” Walmer said. “The coaching staff was very talkative and inviting to me and my family along with an awesome campus that I fell in love with right away.
“The school size was also something that I liked, sitting at 6,000-7,000 students. It just felt like everything clicked right away.”
Walmer first started fielding inquiries from college coaches less than six months ago.
“My recruitment started at the end of this past winter and beginning of spring,” he said. “That was when coaches started to reach out to me about coming to camps or visiting their campuses.
“It was difficult at first to figure out what camps were worth the time and money and which schools could be a good fit for me, but I ended up picking a handful of schools to visit that I thought were the most reasonable and would be the best fit. After visiting Platteville, most of the other schools weren’t being considered anymore.”
Walmer’s recruitment was not limited by the restrictions the two previous high school graduating classes felt due to COVID.
“I think that I was pretty lucky with the recruiting process because COVID had died down, so visits and camps were available to do in person and they didn’t have to be online,” he said. “This definitely made things a lot easier since I could see everything first-hand and see what I liked and what I didn’t like in the schools I went to.”
He realized the possible downside of committing prior to trying his first kick as a senior.
“It has crossed my mind that committing early was a risky decision, but I don’t regret it at all,” Walmer said. “I know there is always the possibility of an offer after the season or in the first couple months of 2023, but I felt at home when I was at Platteville.
“That made the decision a lot easier to make when I decided to commit.”
After playing soccer his first two years of high school, Walmer opted to focus on football in the fall. He has also lettered in track and field.
“Having a background in soccer and playing since I started walking also helped my success with kicking,” he said.
Walmer plans on majoring in something along the lines of business, although he hasn’t finalized his decision yet.
“I would love to go into real estate when I get out of college, so I hope that’s where I’ll be in 10 years,” he said.
When he arrives at Platteville, Walmer is projected as being the backup to a fifth-year senior (Andrew Schweigert).
“He is projected to be a returning All-American which will be awesome for me to learn from during my freshman year of college,” Walmer said. “After that, I am projected to take over the starting job for my sophomore year, throughout the rest of my time there.
“Right now, the coaches and I have talked about getting on the same lifting, kicking, and nutrition routine as a college athlete, so that I can come into Platteville and make an immediate impact.”
Walmer doesn’t see the approximate 270-mile trip from Mahomet to Platteville as a deterrent.
“I think the transition from home to Platteville will be difficult at first, but just knowing that I will have teammates and coaches around me to make me feel at home and help me out, will make it a little bit easier,” he said.
