One Iowa student may have secured themselves the unfortunate title of the worst kicker in the history of College GameDay.
Pat McAfee and co. brought the popular ESPN program to Iowa City, home of the Iowa Hawkeyes, this week.
And, as is now tradition, the panel invited one lucky student to have the chance of winning $1million with McAfee’s field goal kicking contest.
Finley Banfig, an Iowa fan, was the student selected to join the series of recent winners. However, instead of hitting the jackpot, she was left humiliated.
The kick only traveled a few yards in a brutal miss in front of former NFL punter McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit.
The college freshman was allowed to save face with a second chance, which was a slight improvement on her first attempt but still missed the posts.
An Iowa student produced the ‘worst kick in College GameDay history’ on Saturday
Pat McAfee and co. brought the popular ESPN program to Iowa City this week
The shockingly poor attempt left fans stunned on social media with many critical users going as far as to brand it the ‘worst kick in College GameDay history.’
‘You could have offered $45 trillion to pay off the national debt and still been fine,’ joked one.
‘Literally the worst ever first attempt,’ claimed another.
‘They could’ve offered her $100 million and she wasn’t making it,’ added a third.
The missed attempt likely offered McAfee and ESPN relief after they were forced to pay out for three weeks in a row.
Students at Ole Miss, Texas and Tennessee earned over $3.5million combined over the past three weeks.
Banfig didn’t walk away empty-handed, however. Former Indianapolis Colts tight end and Iowa legend Dallas Clark attended the GameDay kick and ended up giving her a hand.
Finley Banfig, an Iowa fan, shockingly missed her first attempt at the field goal contest
Clark, who moved back to the state after retiring from the NFL in 2014, launched a 30-yard pass through the field goal uprights, which resulted in the massive Hawkeyes fan receiving $150,000 and another $150,000 going to the Iowa Children’s Hospital.
The contest has been McAfee’s signature
A former West Virginia Mountaineers punter who went on to the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, McAfee launched the ‘Kicking is Easy’ competition when he joined the ESPN GameDay crew in 2023.
Remarkably, McAfee funded more than $6 million in prize and charity money connected to the contest over its first three seasons, but is now being matched by Home Depot, according to Front Office Sports.
