There's a knee, a calf and a shin, an ankle that connects everything to the foot. Really, it's a leg that doesn't look different than any other.

But to watch that leg, the one belonging to Colorado's Mason Crosby, launch balls from 70 yards and more, you understand the difference — he's not walking around on the same kind of wheels as the rest of us.

The funny part is that Crosby isn't quite sure why.

"I've thought about it, wondered 'what have I done to deserve this leg?'" says Crosby, a senior. "There really isn't an answer for it."

Well, there is — sort of.

Part of it is natural ability, which Crosby has plenty of.

He was the one who took all the free kicks in soccer during grade school because his leg was so much stronger than everyone else's, and was hitting 40-yard field goals by middle school. Crosby made a 59-yard field goal during a high school game and connected from 68 yards in practice.

While at Colorado, he's made 13 field goals from 50 yards — with a career-best of 60 his sophomore year — and made one from 71 yards before a game earlier this year. Though he wasn't a finalist for the Groza Award, given annually to college football's best kicker, there's little doubt Crosby will be the first kicker taken in next year's NFL draft, perhaps even in the first round.

But to understand Crosby's gift, you have to get into the physics of kicking a football.

That's where Dr. Timothy Gay comes in. He's a professor of physics at the University of Nebraska and author of "Football Physics," which looks at the mechanics of everything from throwing and kicking a football to the equipment.

There are many variables, but kicking a football long distances is all about foot speed; the faster the foot comes through the ball, the farther it's going to fly.

It comes down to leg strength and creating an arch with one's body to build momentum.

Crosby has plenty of natural leg strength and adds to it with presses, extensions and lots of kicking — movements that define his muscles instead of bulking them up.

As for the arch (think of a pitcher's wind-up or golfer's back swing), it starts with flexibility in the hip that allows him take his leg back to a point that would make most of us feel like we've dislocated something. The knee bends at a sharp angle as it goes back, then straightens as it gets closer to the ball, with the thigh and the calf pulling through to create a whipping action at the ball. The wider the arch, the farther the ball will go.

"It's really kind of obvious, but it's also true — it's foot speed," Gay says. "The best kickers have a really fluid motion and they can get that leg, the kicking leg, moving really, really fast. That means they've got to integrate the run up to the ball with the actual motion of the leg."

Crosby has an advantage in that he's 6-foot-1, which creates a wider arch. But he also has impeccable mechanics, particularly his footwork, which allows him to make the most of his size.

And here's something that might not make sense: when Crosby is attempting one of those really long ones, he tries not to swing hard. Instead, he focuses on mechanics, trying to get his timing right and making a fluid stroke.

"I try utilize my size," Crosby says. "It's like golfers, the tall guys don't have to swing as hard. I feel like that's my deal, I try not to swing as hard. I try to use everything before that so I don't have swing as hard on those long ones."

Once the mechanics are down, the big key is calculating the angle at which the ball flies toward the goal post. That doesn't mean kickers are physics majors. It just means they're out on the practice field every day, kicking over and over again until they find what feels right.

"Let's be honest, these kickers aren't sitting around with slide rules figuring out the angles, but they know what works," Gay says. "They're practicing what works. But the bottom line is that they're practicing to kick the ball at a specific angle."

Launch angles, foot speed, footwork — it's all great, but doesn't do much good without some natural talent to work with. If all it took was a little physics, then any scrawny dude with a calculator could figure out how to kick 60-yarders.

"A lot of it has to do with your quick-twitch muscle fiber," Colorado coach Dan Hawkins says. "You find a kid who can throw a baseball fast, he usually can kick a ball far. A lot of it comes down to your DNA that way."

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John Marshall is asap's sports writer, based in Denver.

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