After more than two months of being a football nomad, Kirt Kissner found a team to play on.

The former Mesa State College standout, who concluded his four-year Mavericks career as a All-American selection on D2Football.com and the Division II American Football Coaches Association teams, is now playing arena football as a defensive lineman for the Colorado Ice.

The Colorado Ice are a member of the United Indoor Football League, consisting of eight Midwestern teams. Kissner was offered a contract by Ice defensive line coach Kevin Lynch at a pro tryout date last month.

Lynch liked what he saw of Kissner at the tryout, which in turn started a wild scramble of events.

“Coach Lynch told me if I wanted to play, I could play the next day,” Kissner recalled.

The quick signing had Kissner scrambling for a place to live. “It’s been a wild two-and-a-half months. I was living in hotels in Loveland for a month and had to make a trip to Grand Junction to get my clothes.”

Since then Kissner’s found an apartment in Fort Collins. And has adapted to the indoor game.

“It’s so fast,” he said. “I’m just now getting settled in with the speed of the game.”
Indoor, or arena, football is played on artificial surfaces 50 yards long and 85 feet wide laid over a hockey rink. Each team has eight players on field offensively and defensively at one time.

Indoor games feature more passing than outdoor football. The style fits for smaller, quicker linemen like Kissner.

“For me the biggest adjustment was the pass rush,” Kissner said. “There’s not a lot of time to get to the quarterback. Defensive linemen have to get there in one to three steps, so we have to use a lot of different angles.”

While there’s less running per play due the shorter field, play remains intense.
“It’s pretty violent,” Kissner said. “This league has a lot of Division I athletes and a lot of good guys.”

Reach Phil Sandoval at psandoval@gjfreepress.com.