When Pat McAfee first introduced his famous kicking contest on ESPN’s College GameDay, the intent was simple. He wanted to prove just how difficult it is to make a 33-yard field goal under the lights, with the pressure of millions of TV viewers and a roaring crowd of thousands behind you.
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As one might have guessed, McAfee’s brain-child segment quickly became a fan favorite, with just one student making the field goal in the entire 2023 season, earning only $30,000.
But five weeks into the 2025 campaign, the story is now completely different. What began as a teaching moment has turned into a reliable payday for lucky students.
So, how is this contest done? McAfee selects someone from the GameDay crowd to attempt the kick, and the money, straight from his own pocket, has only grown larger over time.
Already this season, there have been three successful kicks in just five weeks, a hit rate that undermines the original premise, especially since the winners aren’t trained kickers. They’ve ranged from Ohio State sophomore Logan, who drilled $250,000 in Week 1 despite a poor field surface, to Oklahoma freshman Jack, who calmly converted $300,000 while the crowd chanted his name.
And most recently, Penn State’s William and his handpicked substitute, Carson, split $300,000 after Carson, a former soccer player, struck the pigskin clean through the uprights.
But it has to be noted that in between, there have also been spectacular misses in Pat McAfee’s kicking contest, including Tennessee’s Gavin, who had two cracks at a combined $600,000 prize money, and Miami’s Henry and Giovanni duo, who failed twice despite a whopping $500,000 on the line.
Still, with $850,000 already given away in 2025, the trend is clear: there have been more winners already than McAfee may have ever anticipated.
“It’s truly all Pat’s money,” ESPN’s vice president of production Matthew Garrett explained earlier this year, underscoring the former punter’s commitment to funding the spectacle himself. In 2024, McAfee gave away over $1.7 million through this contest.
McAfee has repeatedly emphasized that the point of the show was to highlight the sheer difficulty of field-goal kicking. But the numbers suggest that purpose is starting to backfire.
But to play devil’s advocate, it’s possible that three winners in five weeks happened simply due to luck. Or because the students chosen came from football-crazy towns and had some prior experience kicking, whether in soccer or just in their backyards.
However, it also raises the question that Pat McAfee and people of his ilk would hate to hear: Maybe this field goal isn’t as difficult as it’s advertised to be?
It’s also widely agreed that kicking is one of the easier positions in the NFL. Still, let’s not discount the amount of technique, strength and calculation (wind, rain) it requires to strike a ball with precision.
So, what is the reason behind more students than expected rising to the moment in McAfee’s kicking contest? All signs point to a bit of luck and a bit of technical brilliance from the participants.
But then again, the sample size is also low for now. And only one failed kick next week is required to change the narrative behind this season’s 60% success rate.
Regardless, props must be given to McAfee’s generosity and showmanship for undeniably making this segment a fixture of GameDay.
If one ignores the irony so far that the more money he gives away, the more his own lesson about the difficulty of kicking fades into the background, his initiative has also brought back chatter around a severely underrated position in the NFL.
And who better than a former punter in Pat McAfee, to have done it!
