A football kicker’s life is relatively simple: make the game-winning field goal and be proclaimed hero or miss it and be dubbed goat.

College placekickers’ chances of being campus Capricorns were enhanced with the announcement by the NCAA last year that the distance between goal posts would be reduced from 23 feet, 4 inches to 18 feet, 6 inches, effective this season.

NIU kickers Matt Golden and Willy Roy Jr. said they won’t be bothered by the reduction and viewed it positively. Golden said kickers will have to make alterations only when kicking close-range field goals.

“Field goals that are closer up are going to be harder,” he said. “They’re going to be at a greater angle. But the further you go, it’s not going to be as great an angle.

“When you’re in a game situation, you’re not going to be thinking angles. You’re going to be thinking about just making them.”

“I think it will be a positive thing,” Roy Jr. said. “All you can do is make the best of it. It makes you work a little bit harder. I’m not saying the changes should have been made, (but) I think it will be a positive attribution to college football.”

“Too many kickers are making field goals,” Golden said. “The percentages are way too high.”