Fresh-faced Nick O’Toole to punt in NFLPA Bowl Game
Looking for a football fix in the middle of winter? ESPN2 has you in mind.
Saturday at 3 p.m. ESPN2 will air the NFL Players Association Bowl Game from Los Angeles, Calif.
The game will give viewers a chance to see some of the nation’s top talent with football players who have a chance to play professionally. It will also give West Virginia football fans a chance to see something for the first time.
A clean-shaven Nick O’Toole.
Recognize this face?
Probably not. It’s been a while since O’Toole has looked like this. He arrived at WVU in 2013, transferring from Fullerton College. He sported long, flowing air with a pencil-thin mustache that rivaled Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Rollie Fingers.
But, O’Toole progressed as a punter, and facial hair expert. The mustache was grown into a full beard and his hair was restyled. For two years, O’Toole was known as “Boomstache,” which was a play on former WVU punter Pat McAfee’s moniker of Boomstick.
But as his playing days drew to a close, O’Toole transformed himself once again. He posted his dramatinc transformation on Twitter on Jan. 3.
With a new look, O’Toole will take on a new persona of
. He certainly has a chance to play at the next level and he’ll get to show scouts firsthand what he can do in the NFLPA game.
O’Toole WVU teammate Marquis Lucas was also selected for the game. A 6-foot-4, 315-pound offensive lineman, Lucas certainly has the size to cut it in the NFL. He helped make the Mountaineers evolve into a run-first team in 2015.
As for O’Toole, he leaves West Virginia after racking up 8,824 yards in three years of punting. As a senior, he had a long of 65 yards, down from his career-high of 68 which he set in his sophomore year.