Going out With a Boom

AARON BOUMERHI TRIES not to think when he’s on the football field. He doesn’t have to. In the sixth-year Boston College kicker’s words, “it’s poetry in motion.”

He only focuses on a few things: his steps—two back, three to the left at a 90-degree angle—his contact with the ball and the weather conditions.

Then he picks a spot in the middle of the goal posts. Something small. Sometimes it’s a seat, others it’s part of the jumbotron or a metal bar attached to the stadium.

Three steps and, “Boom.” His nickname and the sound of the ball being whacked through the uprights. It’s muscle memory, just like a golf swing, except you’re running toward the ball.

“It’s almost like a ‘Happy Gilmore’ in a sense,” Boumerhi explained.

Yet it’s calculated, not reckless. Formulaic, not spontaneous. But, for a job that’s dependent on timing, Boumerhi says he wasn’t on schedule all last year.

After recovering from his second surgery on his kicking hip, every field goal and extra point felt different. Boumerhi had to find a “new normal,” and, in doing so, became one of three ACC kickers in 2020 to make 14 or more field goals and convert at least 80% of his attempts.

While impressive, his success wasn’t shocking. Boumerhi is a transfer and a former preferred walk-on who almost walked away from football. His entire career hasn’t been on schedule.

THE CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA native appears quiet and reserved. He cares more about his teammates than himself, according to his mother Jen Farrell. When he’s comfortable, though, he loves to clown. It’s a switch he can flip, almost like when he has to trot onto the field and drown out the noise of the crowd or, last season, the opposing sideline in an otherwise empty stadium.

Former Temple teammate and fellow kicker Austin Jones jokes that Boumerhi is so bad at video games that you’d think he’s holding the controller upside down (Jones claims to have beaten him in "Call of Duty," 25-0). The 23-year-old MBA candidate inspired the rest of BC’s special teams unit to grow out their facial hair last summer and showed up to picture day with long, curly, mahogany-colored hair and an 80s mustache.

“If you’re around Aaron, you’re pretty much always laughing, or you’re ready to string him up because he drives you crazy,” Farrell said chuckling.

But, as the youngest of three boys—each of whom kicked in college—he is naturally stubborn. Boumerhi participated in math leagues in elementary school, jockeyed with his brothers for high grades and took every game seriously, even those that he made up himself. Farrell says that his competitive spirit runs in the family and can be traced back to her grandmother.

It’s that drive that led Boumerhi to Division I.

He didn’t receive a single offer in high school, despite ranking as high as ninth nationally at a Kohl’s kicking event and even being invited to—and winning awards at—camps at schools such as Ole Miss, Tennessee, Indiana, Penn State, Virginia and Alabama.

The problem was never his skill. It was a lack of opportunity. Boumerhi’s high school, Philipsburg-Osceola, was 1-29 during his three years on the gridiron. The Mountaineers scored 10 touchdowns his whole senior season. Boumerhi was a perfect 10-of-10 on extra points, but that wasn’t pulling recruiters to a small town in the middle of Pennsylvania.

That following winter, though, Temple reached out. Boumerhi visited and loved what he saw from the school’s facilities, the program’s campus and the team’s head coach, Matt Rhule, who’s now at the helm of the Carolina Panthers.

Boumerhi thought he might have a shot to be the Owls’ kickoff man as a true freshman. He ended up being thrust into a much bigger role than that.

DURING THE FOURTH quarter of Temple’s sixth game of the season, a Memphis player blocked Jones, the Owls’ third-year starting place kicker, in the back on a kickoff return. The hit resulted in Jones tearing his ACL, an injury that not only gave him and his NFL dreams a “reality check” but also prompted Boumerhi’s debut.

“I saw Austin go down, and I immediately was texting and calling his brothers,” Farrell said. “And I was like, ‘I think Aaron might have to go in.”

It was the start of a magical 2016 season that saw Boumerhi convert 15-of-17 field goals, including a 47-yarder at UCF and a 48-yarder at Navy. He also made four kicks in the Military Bowl against Wake Forest. Temple went 7-1 with Boumerhi booting field goals that season, and he earned All-AAC second-team honors.

Fellow sixth year, former Temple teammate and current BC linebacker Isaiah Graham-Mobley lived next to Boumerhi that year and remembers it all unfolding. He said that Boumerhi and offensive lineman Matt Hennessy, who played against Stony Brook and started versus Charlotte, became the faces of the Owls’ freshman class. Boumerhi’s impact, however, was unrivaled.

“We were all super happy for him,” Graham-Mobley said. “Being able to come in and play right away was just pretty cool. Boom’s story is amazing.”

Except, it wasn’t without twists.

While Boumerhi seized the moment as a true freshman, Jones—who set the Temple single-season record for field goals in 2015—was in the running to reclaim the starting place kicker job the next season.

Jones admits that he wasn’t 100% that fall. He wishes he could have done his rehab over again because he knows he was “slacking.” By the time the season rolled around, his kicking hip was still hurting.

“I was fighting to get a redshirt and Aaron knew that,” Jones said. “I was like, ‘Dude, they’re not giving me my redshirt this week. They’re not giving me my redshirt this week.’ So they kind of threw Aaron out of the loop, too.”

Head coach Geoff Collins alternated between Boumerhi and Jones the first three games of the 2017 season, with Jones taking shorter kicks and Boumerhi reporting for long-range attempts.

Both Jones and Boumerhi, at this point great friends, recounted how frustrating it was to not know when their numbers were going to be called. One sack, and the kicker selection could change. But, once again, Boumerhi kicked it into gear. Literally.

He drilled a 49-yard game-winner against Villanova in the season opener. The following week, he sunk a career-long 52-yarder versus UMass. Jones finally got his medical redshirt after the fourth game of the season, and Boumerhi returned to his full-time role.

THIS TIME, THERE was some turbulence. Boumerhi was 8-of-13 to finish the year, rounding out the season 15-of-23. His lowest point came at Army when he ricocheted a 32-yarder off the right post and then pulled a 27-yarder in overtime left of the upright.

“There’s a picture of him,” Farrell said, “his head hanging down. And that’s not him. His personality is not head hanging down. You could just tell he was defeated in the moment.”

After Boumerhi collapsed to the turf, his teammates surrounded him in support. Defensive back Linwood Crump, then a sophomore, sat with Boumerhi, and Jones remembers how veterans reminded the young kicker that it was just one kick.

Unfortunately for Boumerhi, he didn’t completely regain his mojo that season, and, toward the end of the year, he started to recognize that something was off. That carried over into the winter when he couldn’t hold his right leg up for a six inches drill. Boumerhi said spring ball was “painful” and his kicks felt “sporadic.”

So he got an MRI and discovered that he had a bony impingement on his acetabulum—in other words, the cup of his hip—and his femur. Not only that, but he tore a bit of his labrum.

Initially, he wanted to battle through it and do damage control during training camp. Boumerhi tried to keep inflammation down and took oral steroids, but his kicking leg was acting up nonetheless. He was 1-of-3 on field goals in the first two games of the season before he ultimately told Collins that he couldn’t keep kicking. Surgery was the only option at that stage.

When he recovered, though, there was no longer a spot for him on the team. As quickly as he rose to the top of Temple’s special teams ladder two years prior, he fell all the way back down. Collins left for Georgia Tech, and Rod Carey took over as head coach. The former Northern Illinois frontman wanted to go in a different direction at the position.

Boumerhi felt betrayed and discouraged. He even felt like it was the end of his career. Farrell said he did “a lot of ‘I think I’m going to quit.’”

“It sucked,” Boumerhi said. “Because after all I had done there, and then to basically get forced out of there because of injury. At first I was very upset.

“And then after about a little while, I was like, ‘You know what, this is motivation. This is my chance to go back out there and prove who I am and who I am as a kicker again.’”

Boumerhi worked his way back to the field, kept kicking and contacted as many coaches as he could in the transfer portal. When he visited BC in the summer of 2019, the Eagles’ coaching staff offered him a scholarship. It was the perfect fit. BC—which hadn’t had a kicker make more than 15 field goals in a season since Nate Freese’s perfect 2013 campaign—was in need of a leg, and Boumerhi wanted someone to take a chance on him.

BOUMERHI SAID IT was odd being the “new guy” when you’re not a freshman. Going from Philadelphia to Chestnut Hill and leaving everything he established at Temple, including his friendships, was an adjustment.

So was kicking again. He missed his first field goal attempt in an Eagles uniform and consistently struggled from the 30-39 range throughout the season. Boumerhi was 5-of-9 from that distance, pushing a 31-yarder that would have kept BC’s chances alive in its upset loss to Kansas. He also misfired on a pair of field goals in a 38-31 loss to Florida State. But he finished the year on a high note, making all four of his kicks at Pittsburgh to end the year 12-of-18.

Then came another injury and coaching change—the third of his college career. Except, unlike the last staff overhaul, Steve Addazio’s firing didn’t result in Boumerhi losing his place at BC.

It was history repeating itself, albeit with a different ending. After re-aggravating his torn labrum in 2019, Boumerhi had to have hip surgery again. It wasn’t until the offseason and the operation was less serious than his first, yet the procedure was stressful nonetheless. Especially because it came within 24 hours of campus being shut down for COVID-19. Instead of starting his recovery in Boston, Boumerhi had to wait a month and a half before beginning therapy.

“Mentally, it was a weird time for everybody,” Farrell said. “And knowing that he’d have to be back for camp in August. That was nerve wracking.”

At first, there was a lot of laying around the house. Playing intense games of Sorry and innovative cooking. Boumerhi, an ace with cilantro and lime, marinated and grilled steaks, in addition to preparing Mexican food for his family.

When his rehab finally started, he was mainly limited to mobility exercises with the floor bike. Then he moved to the AlterG anti-gravity treadmill before gradually returning to running. When camp started, he still wasn’t sprinting or kicking.

It was touch and go throughout camp. Boumerhi wasn’t ready for Week 1, but he got the call up for BC’s home opener against Texas State. Rookie head coach Jeff Hafley and special teams coordinator Matt Thurin believed in him.

“Having Coach Hafley was amazing,” Boumerhi said. “When your coach has confidence in you, no matter how much confidence you have in yourself, it just amplifies it even more.”

Boumerhi’s first kick back was a 47-yarder off the right hash. It was blocked off the edge—not how he envisioned his return. His 36-yard game-winner was.

After being iced three times in a row, Boumerhi drove the ball through the uprights to cap a 24-21 comeback victory. He was toppled by his jubilant teammates on the sideline, a remarkably different picture than the one his mom was describing at Army three years earlier.

The in-game bounceback was a microcosm of Boumerhi’s career. And it jumpstarted a season in which he converted 16-of-20 attempts and all 30 of his extra points.

If you didn’t know Boumerhi’s story, you would have never guessed he had two operations on his kicking leg hip. The veteran’s field goal attempts were crisp last season. The ball was rolling over itself mid-air with speed and perfect rotation.

Boumerhi was basically automatic inside 40 (14-of-15). It was a welcome change for a program that hadn’t had a starting kicker make north of 70% of his field goal attempts since 2016.

Boumerhi said that, regardless of COVID-19, 2020 was the most fun year of his football career. He wants to do it again. Even after the wear and tear. The stress. The doubt.

“The weirdest thing for me is just, I didn’t even redshirt as a freshman,” Boumerhi said. “So I remember back in 2016, I’m sitting there thinking I’ll play four years, and then I’ll be done with football in college. And then here I am in my sixth year. It’s crazy.”

Fans will be back in Alumni Stadium. Boumerhi will have a third-year starting long snapper and a holder who’s in the running for the Peter Mortell Holder of the Year award. And he has a coach who isn’t flinching when BC lines up for a field goal.

“Boom’s a guy I trust,” Hafley said. “Boom’s a guy that I’m going to be able to go to this year and say, ‘Hey, what do you think, man?’ The ball’s on the 36, 39, want to go for it?’ Because I trust him, and I believe in him.”

Boumerhi’s career hasn’t gone according to plan. Zero high school offers, two hip surgeries, four head coaches, a life-changing transfer and a pandemic. But a sixth year of eligibility has afforded him the chance to get back on schedule.

And go out with a Boom.