College Football’s Most Underappreciated Skill Took Center Stage in Thrilling Indiana-Minnesota Game

Pour one out for a placekicker you know—ever ridiculed, constantly iced, yet counted upon time and time again. Is there any position in football, or any skill more underappreciated than kicking? Go to any sports bar in America and there’s bound to be a person scoffing at the failures of a kicker after a shanked miss.

Yes, placekicking can go horribly awry in so many different ways, and sticks out like a sore thumb when it does. But when placekicking is consistently reliable, it’s often taken for granted, much in the same way one would an efficient dishwasher. It’s the classic I-could-do-that sports maneuver. It’s also the fly in the ointment that’s ruined many a Saturday and Sunday.

But placekicking got its well-deserved moment on Saturday during Indiana’s thrilling 23–16 overtime win over Minnesota. The classic back-and-forth Big Ten affair fittingly came down to the sport’s ultimate trick-or-treat play on Halloween night late in the fourth quarter. And not once, but twice, did the placekickers deliver something that was last seen in the Big Ten way back in 1899.

Just a week after he played hero to win the game for the Golden Gophers as time expired against Iowa, Minnesota kicker Luke Drzewiecki was once again asked to don his cape. Drzewiecki, a New Mexico transfer who missed just one kick for the Lobos last year, has somehow been even better this year. He had yet to miss a kick this season when he stepped onto the field with 19 seconds left, staring down the Memorial Stadium goalposts some 60 yards away. No announcer’s jinx, no icing the kicker—Indiana coach Curt Cignetti was out of timeouts—could stop the man with ice water in his veins who once walked on at New Mexico and was referred to as “one tough mofo” by Gophers coach P.J. Fleck.

Drzewiecki calmly nailed the longest field goal of his collegiate career—and had the leg to make it from even further out—sending the 54,400 at Memorial Stadium into a stunned silence.

HE NAILED IT FROM 60 YARDS!!!!!!

GOPHERS LEAD LATE!

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN LUKE DRZEWIECKI" -- Brad Nessler pic.twitter.com/KoDOSHPKei
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) October 31, 2026

It seemed Minnesota had pulled off the upset. But as the great Lee Corso, a former IU coach, would say, not so fast. On the ensuing possession, Indiana backup quarterback Grant Wilson, from the Hoosiers’ 25-yard line, rocketed a pass to the back shoulder of Charlie Becker, who hauled it in for a 33-yard gain, falling out of bounds to stop the clock. After another Wilson pass fell incomplete, Cignetti, like a baseball manager signaling to the bullpen, turned to kickoff specialist Paddy McAteer rather than usual placekicker Nico Radicic, who had missed a pair of kicks earlier in the game.

A native of Mullaghbawn, Ireland, a small town with a population of roughly 600 people, McAteer played Gaelic football and didn’t kick an American football until three years ago at the age of 20. He’d spent much of his time in 2026 booming touchbacks on Indiana kickoffs.

Yet, as he stepped up to kick the game into overtime from 60 yards out in what was just his third attempted field goal of the season, there was zero doubt from Cignetti.

“My man Paddy … as soon as he hit you knew it was good,” Cignetti said after the game.

HOWWWWWW?!?!

ANOTHER 60 YARDER!!!

PADDY MCATEER SENDS IT TO OVERTIME!

📺 CBS | Paramount+ pic.twitter.com/P0NMHzQ7zb
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) October 31, 2026

McAteer’s kick was indeed true, ending the kicker duel in a stalemate. Drzewiecki and McAteer became the first opposing kickers since 1941 to make a 60-yard field goal in the same game. The contest went to overtime, where Indiana struck for a touchdown on its first play, then came up with a game-ending sack on a fourth-and-goal to keep Minnesota out of the end zone.

The scoreboard showed an Indiana win. But the edge-of-your-seat theatrics and pulse-defying kicks in the clutch pointed to an even bigger victor.

Kickers were the real winners.

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