Pat McAfee’s weekly kicking challenge on ESPN’s College GameDay has quickly become one of the most unpredictable segments in college football broadcasting. The former NFL punter has built a reputation for handing out life-changing checks to lucky students. However, one Utah student had two chances to walk away a millionaire, only to come up short on both attempts.
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McAfee was taking on the crowd during the GameDay segment when he challenged a girl named Morgan. The challenge was to kick the ball into the goalpost to win a million dollars. McAfee said, while prepping her up for the kick, “Old school extra point.” As Morgan said, “I feel like I’d do so much better if I went for two points.”
McAfee was pumping up Morgan as he simplified the challenge to just some yards and even gave her some tips as a former kick specialist to help her win. “Take a snap; you can do the entire thing,” McAfee said to boost her confidence.
“All you’ve got to do is make this kick from about 19 to 20 yards. If I were you, I would try to hit it on the left side because it’s a little bit tilted, so it might be easier. One million dollars, Miss Morgan, which is not enough for you, but I think it could change your life. Good luck, Miss Morgan. Here we go, University of Utah.”
Before McAfee could even complete, Morgan went for the kick and, well, missed it by a margin. To give her another chance, McAfee shifted the blame to Kirk Herbstreit, who was holding the ball for her to kick. “That’s a bad hold, I believe,” McAfee said.
McAfee gave Morgan a chance to redeem herself, offering her another shot at winning the $1 million prize. Kirk Herbstreit held the ball again as McAfee gave her a shout-out as she took another shot at it. “Here comes Morgan Boring.” But even that couldn’t reach the 20-yard line. Even Herbstreit chimed in, “We can’t keep it up in the air.” Morgan thought that third time would be the charm, but unfortunately, McAfee did not give her a third chance, and Rece Davis took the screen as Morgan’s two missed attempts meant McAfee retained the full $1 million prize.
McAfee has been enjoying giving away money in his kick challenges and has so far given 11 million dollars. During his last game-day presence in Alabama, McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit offered a participant named Sam the chance to win the money by successfully making a kick.
Sam won the opportunity to attempt the kick, but instead of taking it himself, he let his best friend, Mason Hill, try. Mason’s first attempt went badly, and the crowd cheered for another try for Mason. He even missed that shot. But to everyone’s surprise, McAfee did give away a $550,000 donation for “recovery efforts here in Alabama.”
In Week 5, a student, Finley Banfig, failed to make her field-goal attempt during McAfee’s kicking challenge. Rather than letting the opportunity end there, McAfee brought in former Iowa Hawkeyes star Dallas Clark to take a kick. Well, there is no surprise in what happened next: Clark successfully won the challenge. That ended with $150,000 for Banfig and another $150,000 for Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital.