Bryce Womble will go where the lights are on.
The 22-year-old Biomedical Engineering and mathematics student whose course load requires him to take classes at both UNC and NC State has been around the University of North Carolina’s Bill Koman Practice Facility a while.
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He was the kicker at Cleveland High School in Johnston County when former Tar Heels star running back Omarian Hampton, currently with the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, starred for the program. That meant he kicked a lot of extra points.
“Not as many field goal opportunities as I would have liked,” he joked.
When Hampton was with UNC football, he provided Womble … better access to the facilities. But if Womble’s going to get in kicking work now, he just has to rely on the knowledge he’s gained in the four-plus years he’s trained on the fields — hoping, preparing for if an opportunity to play at UNC comes available to him, too.
Womble’s pursuit of his dream to be a walk-on kicker for the Tar Heels involves squeezing in kicking time around campus intramural games. While he’s certainly aware the dream may never come to fruition, he remains supremely motivated, as evidenced by the 5,000 miles he’s put on his car this summer driving home to use fields in Clayton when Chapel Hill facilities aren’t available.
He arrived at UNC’s Navy Field Parking Grounds a little before 9:45 p.m. on Sep. 10, wandered to the goalposts on the far end of the practice facility’s outdoor field and plopped on the ground, pulling on a white cleat on his left foot and a black cleat (which he just likes the feel of) on his right, as a UNC intramural rugby game played in the background.
Womble called himself a “a high-academic guy,” and it’s easy to see why. He’s a Russian culture minor, and as he readied for his brief warmup, he mused about the writings of Anton Chekhov, how every word connects. It’s a curiosity that has served him as approached every aspect of his kicking journey with a focus on perfecting the precision of his form.
To get a scope of the options he had for a kicking spot nationally, he even used his background in coding and Artificial Intelligence to create a bot that searched the rosters of every team across FBS and FCS. This is in addition to Tweeting regularly at the Tar Heels staff over the last four years, somehow fitting this full-time kicking pursuit in with a grueling school schedule and a consistent eight hours of sleep.
“Heck,” Womble said, “there are 24 hours a day.”
Several around him have noted that Womble has many tools (and a few degrees) that will set him up nicely when his time with the Tar Heels is done. In other words, a good backup plan.
But if there’s one trait that can’t be denied about Womble, it’s his commitment to keeping this dream afloat. He added one last semester this fall — a fifth-year, in the athlete’s sense, waiting out an opportunity one last time. And after four years, he actually got one.
Campbell football coaches first started following him and reached out on Twitter, and that became a real offer leading into the 2026 football season. The semester hadn’t yet started, so Womble was all set to unenroll in his UNC and NC State classes. He was going to be a Division-I kicker. But then he wasn’t.
“It was like a gut punch,” said Matt Wogan, his trainer through Dan Orner Kicking. “Because I mean, he just … he deserves it.”
Womble had taken over 170 credit hours in his four years at UNC. If he transferred to Campbell, he could only take with him 90. That and a combination of other factors, ultimately, forced Womble to turn down his one and only true opportunity.
It was a disappointing break in his journey for those who have followed it closely — another example of the increasingly uncertain path for prospective walk-ons in an era of roster limits. But Womble has a different perspective. That same Friday, he got word that UNC returning kicker Rece Verhoff was ruled ineligible. So, maybe, he still had a chance.
That’s why, after a long Thursday leading into a Friday that was set to begin with a 6 a.m. lift, it was important Womble fit his reps in. The Thursday-night workout created a coating of sweat just enough to reflect the large stadium lights on his forehead. But the work itself was pretty mundane. Womble just stuck to doing “thuds,” around 50 to 100. He stood lined up in a stance, stationary by the ball, wound his leg back and followed through.
Distance isn’t the objective — he doesn’t want to get “trigger-happy,” set a new PR field goal range every time he works out.
“I don’t know how many 60-yard attempts UNC’s had in the last 10 years,” Womble said. “Probably not any.”
So Womble stood still and swung, again and again, recording himself and making slight angular shifts until he found the sweet spot. As he was setting up another ball on the holder, the lights went out.
He noted the time: 9:15 p.m.
Early.
He walked up to the ball already set up, stood still, swung back and followed through. Womble then packed his bags in the darkness and headed next door. Bill Koman practice facility kept the lights on until 10:45 p.m.
Throughout Womble’s journey, there have been close calls, even if none of them were truly the calls he was waiting for. Yet when his phone rang on Dec. 9, 2023, he still isn’t sure if that one was either.
A UNC assistant dialed his phone while he was studying for a physics final. No voicemail. He called back, no answer. He figured it could have been a butt dial. But it still stuck with him. Because Womble said he’s had actual run-ins with the UNC staff that go beyond his Twitter bursts. He’d been walked through NCAA Clearinghouse, told to be ready in case there’s ever a need for an extra kicker on the roster. Then that call came, right in the lead up to the Tar Heels’ game against West Virginia in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Or it didn’t. He’ll never know.
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Womble joked that kicking is one of those things: Someone misses a kick and countless in the stands or watching on TV think or say aloud, “I could have made that.” But Womble, genuinely, could. He’s been training at this one particular skill — field-goal kicking — since he was in eighth grade, picking it up after an old soccer coach brought around a football and Womble said he “wound up kicking it pretty good.”
He started training the next year with former UNC kicker Dan Orner, who said he’s worked with “around 75 of the 120 power four” college kickers and nine in the NFL. The trainer through Dan Orner Kicking who worked with Womble closest, Wogan, was struck by the way Womble always met a suggestion to tweak his form by asking “why?” Womble wanted to understand the reasoning. But then Wogan said Womble did “everything we asked: Wogan told him to get a slam ball, a jump rope, do box jumps; and Womble sent Wogan film doing all three.
“Bryce doesn’t have the biggest leg,” Orner said, “but he’s got 50-yard range, and he’s very, very accurate … So, with three seconds on the clock, you put in a guy that you know nine out of 10 times from 45 yards is going to make the kick.”
That’s something that UNC has been missing at times this season. With Verhoff unable to play, the Tar Heels have relied on LSU transfer Aeron Burrell to handle everything. Burrell has performed well in the kickoff game, allowing just five returns on 15 kicks with nine touchbacks, and in the punting game, netting 40.7 yards per attempt.
But Burrell has missed all three of his field goal attempts from 40-49 yards. But even if Womble could help UNC, the path has never been less clear.
Wogan remembered when he kicked at Oregon, eight or nine walk-ons joined the team in his four years alone. And that’s just specialists. But even simply looking at the UNC kicking room, if Burrell or Verhoff aren’t available, the Tar Heels have the country’s 13th-ranked kicker in the 2026 class per 247 Sports behind them in David Green. A lot would seemingly have to happen for them to consider a walk-on specialist over the players they’ve already invested in, Orner felt.
But Womble chose this. He perhaps could have sought a lower level, but he wanted a UNC education and to take a chance on himself.
“To his credit,” Wogan said, “he bet on himself every single time.”
So he remained persistent, and had several back-and-forths with the Tar Heels staff during Mack Brown’s tenure as coach his first three years at the school. The missed call as a sophomore might have been the closest he’s gotten to a call-up, but he managed to keep himself within some amount of arms’ length even as coach Bill Belichick took over the UNC program.
So an email found his inbox.
Then-general manager Michael Lombardi was looking for volunteer staff to interview for what Womble described as an “analyst position.” Womble thought this was a great opportunity to get to know the staff, get a foot in the door of the UNC football facility. But he just wanted to make sure first: If he does this, would he remain eligible? He asked UNC football staff that question and was told they’d get back to him.
Finally, he got word: He was chosen … and so were a lot of people. He arrived at the Tar Heels’ football facility to do a face scan for access to the building, and jumped in at the end of a “long line” waiting for the elevator to bring the volunteers up. That’s all that stood between him and, finally, being a part of the Tar Heels football program. But before he could get to the front, an assistant that Womble didn’t want to name approached him.
“If you get on this elevator, you go up, and you try (to) start working for us,” Womble said the assistant told him, “you can never play for UNC football.”
Womble didn’t deliberate very long — a volunteer position wasn’t what he wanted. So he got out of line and walked out of the facility.
“The only regret I have,” Womble said, “is that I didn’t walk out faster.”
Womble’s stay at Bill Koman Practice Facility wasn’t very long. He found a spot right on the edge of the far end zone at the Steve Bell Family Field indoors, but could only get a few thuds in before a UNC intramural staffer told him they were locking up. So he packed his bags again and walked out the side door, up a flight of stairs and into an open grassy area where a bunch of intramural soccer games were being held.
He found a lacrosse net, but didn’t like that angle. So he reached into his bag and placed a Band-aid on a large metal pole just a few paces to the right of the net. That was the best option he had left: kicking at that small target on the pole and chasing the balls after they shot in all sorts of unpredictable directions.
This was as much as he said he’d ever had to move around, but he wanted to go until 10 p.m. He had a friend studying and was hoping to catch him. He had biomechanical engineering homework due at 11:55 p.m. The next morning, he had to get up for a 6 a.m. lift.
“Gotta do what you gotta do to win, though,” Womble quipped.
The work that night, save for a few quick pivots in location and the ever-so-subtle angular change in the pivot of his foot, never got more exciting. But Womble was feeling introspective, too. He seemingly caught on that the why of what he was doing needed to be understood. Especially because, no matter how hard he worked, nothing’s truly in his control. UNC might not need a kicker. Another program might not stumble across Tweets. Then this ends.
He doesn’t look at his journey from that perspective, though. He’s always loved to learn things, as well as the pursuit of how he can better himself over the course of a single day. Right now, Womble finds this kicking journey fun — regardless of the outcome. And what’s there for him to complain about?
He’s 22-years-old, doesn’t have many bills and still does that homework due at 11:55 p.m. as the workout lagged a few minutes past 10 p.m. at that point, but he’ll be able to accomplish everything and still wake up the next morning “full of energy.” This is a unique opportunity, he said. And he felt lucky to have found a pole he could kick into at the end of the night.
“Obviously, there’s days that you’re like, ‘Ugh, I got work today,’” Womble said, “But there’s other days where it’s like, ‘Hey man, lights are still on.’”
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This story was originally published September 22, 2026 at 6:00 AM.