Maybe in a distant time football will exist without the necessity of a foot.

Worldwide the sport of soccer is the REAL football. The game we play in the United States more accurately could be termed Runball and in Canada, with one less down to move the chains, Passball.

Until the game evolves, however, football teams in the U.S. and Canada still need someone who can kick the ball through the uprights — from three yards out following a touchdown for one point, and from anywhere at any time for three points.

Thus has evolved a part-time player who is as incongruous on a football team as a kangaroo among a herd of rhinos.

More than 30 years ago when Don Fambrough was Kansas University’s football coach, a kicker was an afterthought. Fambrough, who in the late 1940s had doubled as an offensive guard and kicker for the Jayhawks, refused to waste a scholarship on a kicker.

Gradually, as the college game emulated the pros and became more specialized, Fambrough awarded grants to kickers. The best one Fambrough ever signed was Bruce Kallmeyer, who earned All-America honors in 1983 by nailing 24 of 29 field-goal attempts.

Today, Kallmeyer is the only kicker whose name is in KU’s Ring of Honor in the north end zone of Memorial Stadium — a distinction he will hold for a long, long time unless they revert to the old rules.

Kallmeyer made a school-record 78 percent (53-of-69) of his field-goal attempts from 1980 to 1983. Under current rules, that glossy percentage is virtually unassailable.

In 1989, college rulesmakers prohibited the use of a tee during field-goal tries. The ball now must be kicked off the field’s surface, whatever its composition or shape.

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Two years later, the rules rajahs struck again, shrinking the width between the uprights from 23 feet, four inches to 18 feet, six inches. That’s four feet, 10 inches, or two feet, five inches on each side.

KU’s Johnny Beck was wide right on a 43-yard field goal attempt that would have tied the score Saturday at Northwestern. The misfire was the last straw for coach Mark Mangino. Beck lost his job two days later.

Beck’s kick wasn’t that far right. The boot clearly missed, but not by very much. Would it have been good in 1990? Would the boot have counted with 2 1/2 more feet of leeway? We’ll never know. But it might have been.

Beck has missed 27 field-goal attempts during his three-plus seasons, more than any kicker in KU history. Before the Northwestern game Beck had been tied with Dan Eichloff, who kicked for three of his four seasons (1990-93) with the narrowed uprights.

Eichloff, however, had 28 more attempts than Beck, making 62 of 87 three-pointers to Beck’s 32-of-59. Curiously, Beck’s predecessor, Joe Garcia, ranks third on that list of missed field goals with 23. Garcia converted 40 of 63 in the late 90s.

Is it time to re-think the college’s restrictive kicking rules? Why not bring back the tees and return to the old distance between the uprights?

Kickers should not be punished more than they already are.