Did anyone win the Pat McAfee field goal challenge in Week 3 at Columbia, SC?
People really need to stop talking trash about kickers, especially before they go on ESPN College GameDay and compete in Pat McAfee's field goal challenge.
Each week on ESPN College GameDay, former NFL punter Pat McAfee picks one lucky fan in the crowd to have a chance at winning some money. All they have to do is kick a 33-yard field goal, sounds easy right?
Apparently, it is way harder than it looks.
Each week, McAfee ups the dollar amount that the person kicking can win. In Week 1, McAfee agreed to double or nothing on a $25,000 kick and ended up owing the participant $50,000. In Week 2, a Michigan freshman came up just short of winning $35,000 and walked away with nothing.
In Week 3 at South Carolina, a sophomore business major stepped up to the challenge and made the vital mistake of trash-talking kickers saying it is not hard to kick a ball and kickers aren't athletes. With $45,000 on the line, McAfee brought over country music singer-songwriter Darius Rucker, who is a huge South Carolina fan to talk to the kid.
Rucker decided to put another $15,000 in the pot to sweeten the deal bringing the total to $60,000 if he makes the 33-yard field goal. McAfee and Rucker weren't done there though.
The participant was wearing a Walk-On for Jake shirt, which is also known as the Jake Panus Scholarship which is given to a hardworking walk-on. McAfee and Rucker noticed the shirt and said if he made the field goal, they would donate $60,000 to the charity as well, meaning $120,000 was all on the line.
The young college student lineup for the kicker with his friend close by cheering him on. McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit didn't think he would make it and boy were they right.
He went in for the kick and the ball barely got off the ground and ended up hitting the crowd, but what was even better is that his shoes went flying for into the crowd and went further than the ball did.
Herbstreit and McAfee relentlessly mocked the kid, but in the end, Rucker and McAfee chose to donate to the scholarship fund in the end, even with the horrible miss.