r/CFB • u/meatfrappe Harvard Crimson • /r/CFB Top Scorer • 7h ago
History Last month, DIII Montclair State attempted a fair catch kick—a play college football hadn't seen in over 85 years
Last month, the NCAA saw its first fair catch kick attempt in more than 85 years! On September 12, 2026, Division III Montclair State attempted one against Lycoming College with one second remaining in the first half.
This video starts with Lycoming punting from its own end zone, setting up the fair catch kick. Skip to 2:48 to see the fair catch kick attempt itself.
The fair catch kick is a holdover from football's rugby roots. It allows a team that has just made a fair catch to attempt an uncontested "free kick" from the spot of the catch. The free kick must be either a place kick or a drop kick, and if it goes through the uprights, it's worth three points.
While fair catch kicks have always been legal in the NFL1, the NCAA eliminated the rule in 1950. As far as I can tell, the last attempt in college football before the ban occurred in 1939.
The NCAA brought the rule back for the 2026 season, and Montclair State is so far the first and only team to put it to use. Unfortunately, the kick sailed wide left, so the bragging rights for "first fair catch made since 1939" are still up for grabs.
1 There have been 33 known fair catch kick attempts in NFL history since 1920. The most recent was made by Cameron Dicker in 2024.
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u/yourmomsthr0waway69 Iowa Hawkeyes 7h ago
I sent this post to Kirk Ferentz and he replied with an eggplant emoji, make of that what you will
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u/noodlesalad_ James Madison • Appalachian S… 4h ago
Bill Belichick is PISSED someone beat him to it
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u/withrootsabove New Hampshire • Brice Cowell… 44m ago
Bill did say right after 28-3 that they were seriously considering trying it when they were getting the ball back right before OT
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u/UCLA_FB_SUCKS UCLA Bruins • USC Trojans 3h ago
i hope the closest emergency room to his home has a spot available in four hours
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u/gold_and_diamond Minnesota Golden Gophers • NYU Violets 7h ago
how is this different from just attempting a field goal? Because the rule forces the defense to not contest it?
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u/enataca Texas Tech Red Raiders • /r/CFB Patron 7h ago
And I think they can attempt it even if the clock hit zero during the original kick before the fair catch. Could be wrong.
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u/Esb5415 Missouri Tigers • Purdue Boilermakers 7h ago
Yes. And you take it from the spot of the catch, not from 7-8 yards behind the line like with a normal field goal
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u/tanu24 Team Chaos • Sickos 6h ago
Feels like this should happen more in the nfl with how kickers can boot it
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u/blotsfan Missouri Tigers 6h ago
You forfeit your drive if you do it so it’s almost never a smart decision.
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u/tanu24 Team Chaos • Sickos 6h ago
But I want to se Cam little attempt from 75 yards
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u/CallSignIceMan Clemson Tigers • Palmetto Bowl 1h ago
I was gonna say, it’s just a matter of time before Cam Little takes an uncontested 75-yarder
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u/bighootay Wisconsin • Minnesota-Duluth 4h ago
They should understand that it's just freaking cool, and that fans demand it!
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u/Ass_of_Badness Notre Dame Fighting Irish 3h ago
Seems like you'd only see it as the last play of a half.
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u/ChiselFish North Carolina Tar Heels 2h ago
Yeah the chargers did it to end a half a season or two ago. https://youtu.be/b77POLcqb0Q?is=zEoAgwvIwp0RgK3p
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u/Statalyzer Texas Longhorns 6h ago
Maybe, although it's only going to be attempted right before the half, since otherwise you'd run an offensive play, and only if the other team is punting from their own goal line right before that and the punter doesn't have an opportunity for a return.
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u/Unrelenting_Salsa LSU Tigers • Georgia Bulldogs 5h ago
Well, in the NFL it's likely smart to do it unless it's an absolute bomb and punted from the goalline. Being able to kick low because you don't have to consider being blocked is a bigger deal than the vast majority of returns.
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u/devil-lion-steeler Michigan State Spartans 6h ago
It only can happen off a punt at the end of a half in a specific area of the field. Probably only a few times a season it makes sense.
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u/B1GTOBACC0 Oklahoma State • Arkansas 6h ago
You have the option after any fair catch, but yeah, it only makes sense when time has expired after a half.
And how often does a fair catch happen in field goal range? The last one in the NFL came after a 15 yard fair catch interference call.
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u/bulldozer_66 West Virginia • Oklahoma 5h ago
You never know when a punter is going to shank a punt from the end zone. That's the most likely scenario.
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u/TDenverFan William & Mary Tribe • Patriot 5h ago
It has to be off a fair catch, and most shanks go out of bounds or aren't caught.
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u/an_actual_lawyer Kansas State Wildcats 4h ago
a fair catch happen in field goal range
I'm pretty sure a kicker could go 70 and maybe even 80 yards on an uncontested kick with a run up. The ability to kick for max distance rather than having to loft it over the line is a huge advantage here.
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u/ThePevster Nevada Wolf Pack • NC State Wolfpack 5h ago
Might happen a little more often now with the range some of these kickers have. Also consider that a fair catch kick is uncontested which means the kicker can get a longer run up and doesn’t need to worry about the kick clearing the defensive line. If someone like Cam Little were at Mile High, I could see a fair catch kick attempt from their own 35 or even 30 yard line being viable
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u/FriesBurgh 4h ago
So there's another legitimate scenario if you are down 9 to 11 points with less than 4 minutes left. You need 2 scores. Take the fair catch kick first so no time comes off. Then either onside kick if under 2 minutes or kickoff deep if not and give the defense time to get a stop.
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u/ClaudeLemieux Michigan Wolverines • NC State Wolfpack 6h ago
I’m a chargers fan and we did this a year or two ago and it was awesome
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u/content_enjoy3r Texas Longhorns • Houston Cougars 5h ago
The fact that NFL punters can boot it means you would almost never see a situation in which a fair catch is in FG range, even for Aubrey and Little.
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u/cwood1973 Texas Longhorns • Houston Cougars 1h ago
fair catch kick
The last time it happened was a 2024 game between the Chargers and the Broncos. Dicker the Kicker made a successful 57-yard fair catch kick after a 15-year penalty for fair catch interference.
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u/SkyShadowing Michigan State Spartans • Big Ten 6h ago edited 6h ago
It did happen in a London NFL game, but probably can never happen again with the new kickoff.
E: I am the fool. I didn't realize it was done off punts, not kick-offs.
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u/wallace6464 Cincinnati Bearcats 6h ago
You would never see it off a kickoff unless it went hilariously wrong. It's always gonna be a punt
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u/auth0r_unkn0wn USC Trojans • Rose Bowl 6h ago
If a team was kicking off with only a second or two remaining, they’d squib kick it to prevent a fair catch and to take off any remaining time on the clock
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u/wallace6464 Cincinnati Bearcats 6h ago
Yeah it was tried in the NFL once like a decade ago for that reason 0 seconds left
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u/Save_US_Karina Army Black Knights • UCF Knights 6h ago
The Chargers did it 2 years ago
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u/wallace6464 Cincinnati Bearcats 6h ago
Didn't remember the reason for that one
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u/Irish8Runner Notre Dame Fighting Irish 6h ago
End of the half with 0s on the clock
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u/accidentalevil Team Chaos 6h ago
That was technically an untimed down though right? If I recall I think there was a penalty on the punt that moved it 15 yards up and made it a more feasible kick.
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u/bulldozer_66 West Virginia • Oklahoma 5h ago
Yes. Untimed down after fair catch and the penalty moved the ball to within range.
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u/Warren_Puff-it South Carolina • Palmetto Bowl 7h ago
And also you don’t have a long snap which adds 7-10 yards to the length of the kick
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u/Eddie5pi Notre Dame Fighting Irish • RIT Tigers 5h ago
And the defense can't defend it, so the kicker could line up and kick it like a kickoff
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u/slimjimithon BYU Cougars 6h ago
In addition, it looks like you kick from where the ball is spotted, instead of the typical ~5 yards behind the line of scrimmage for a normal field goal. So the free kick is uncontested and shorter than a normal field goal.
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u/SpacemanWaldo SMU Mustangs 6h ago
It's 8, not 5, for a typical field goal, but yeah.
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u/TrackVol Tennessee • Alabama 5h ago
I always assumed 7 yards, but yeah. Either way, it's definitely not 5.
I always converted a 35 yard line of scrimmage to a 52 yard field goal.
35 yards line + 7 yard snap + 10 yard end zone = 52.
I'm not on a football team, so maybe it also varies by kicker. Some like 7. Some like 7½, some like 8 🤷♂️.
It may even be different depending on the part of the field you're on. 🤷♂️5
u/SpacemanWaldo SMU Mustangs 5h ago
I think 7 might have been a thing in the past (because that's how far back the holder must be for the snapper to have protection under the rules), but I don't know of any NCAA or NFL teams that still do 7 yard snaps on fg tries. It's 8, pretty much uniformly.
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u/ThePevster Nevada Wolf Pack • NC State Wolfpack 4h ago
It seems like they still use 7 yards when saying how long the field goal is though. Like if the LOS is at the 30 they always say the attempt is 47 yards
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u/Ass_of_Badness Notre Dame Fighting Irish 3h ago
It's simply based on how far back the FG unit sets up. I think you'll see 7 for shorter field goals in which the kick angle is high enough to not be too concerned about being blocked, 8 for longer field goals to make it safer.
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u/TrackVol Tennessee • Alabama 4h ago
I think it comes from one of those indelible childhood memories.
Van Tiffen's legendary game winning field goal was a 52-yaeder from the 35 yard line of scrimmage. We're talking 1985 here. So obviously a lot can change in (checks notes) 40+ yearsMost people in this state still look at this as the best Iron Bowl ever played, and that's even with "The Cam-Back", "The Gravedigger" and "The Kick Six" "Wrong Way Bo" and "Punt Bama, Punt" all vying for that honor too.
Obviously the Kick Six is the best ending.
But 1985's "The Kick" is still believed to be the best overall game.
It's worth watching the 90 second video for the final two plays. 👆19
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u/flyingcircusdog Georgia Tech • Clean Old … 6h ago
Yes. The defense it not allowed to contest it, so the kicker can take his time and try a lower angle.
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u/SinkNSlide3345 Ohio State Buckeyes 5h ago
Kinda embarrassing that he sailed it wide left then right? Like missing a wide open layup
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u/ButterscotchFiend McGill Redbirds • Vermont Catamounts 4h ago
A football is way more volatile in the air than a basketball. Doesn’t seem a fair comparison
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u/ThePevster Nevada Wolf Pack • NC State Wolfpack 4h ago
We’re talking about D3 lol. The quality of kickers is not great
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u/flyingcircusdog Georgia Tech • Clean Old … 3h ago
No? It's still a 40 yard kick and a D3 kicker. It's like taking an open 3, it's not always going to fall.
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u/TrueBrees9 Virginia Tech Hokies • Texas Longhorns 6h ago
You can run up to the kick as if it’s a kickoff. That’s the big difference.
It’s pretty normal for a kickoff to go from your own 35 or 40 through the other end zone because you get full power on the kick and don’t have to get it over a line. Can’t do that on FGs.
Edit: Field goals are two steps and then kick, but on kickoffs the kicker can run up to the ball at full speed and get a lot more power on it
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u/CieraVotedOutHerMom South Carolina Gamecocks 7h ago
Bingpot
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u/Rock_man_bears_fan Miami (OH) RedHawks • Nebraska Cornhuskers 6h ago
You’re kicking from the spot of the catch as well
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u/TrackVol Tennessee • Alabama 5h ago
You also kick it from the spot, rather than 7 yards back. So there's all sorts of benefits.
No defensive line. No snap. 7 or 8 yards better placement.1
u/Kodyaufan2 Auburn • Jacksonville State 49m ago
And I believe they can kick it off a tee. At least they can in high school
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u/AscoyneDAscoyne 7h ago
That rattled the ol' brain cells. Ryan Fitzgerald - now with Carolina - connected on a 60-yarder in high school on one of these in 2017. Since high schools generally borrow a bunch from college, kinda surprising this was on the rulebook.
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u/RandomFactUser France Les Bluets • USA Eagles 6h ago
It might have been a removed rule that HS and the NFL didn’t take out but the NCAA and IFAF did
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u/joseph_grizzly 5h ago
looks like he is obviously kicking the ball off a tee, whereas in the clip above they still had to use a holder.
i wonder if a tee is allowed, you just have to ask for one? if so, that's a MASSIVE advantage. you could see lots of NCAA/NFL kickers nailing 70 yards from a tee on a free kick.
down 1-2-3 points and the other team couldn't burn the entire clock? you force a punt and fair catch it at your own 40? fucking free kick that shit lmao.
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u/Pro-1st-Amendment UMass Minutemen 4h ago
High school allows tees for all field goals, not just fair catch kicks.
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u/PurelyCarnal 6h ago
I think Harbaugh did this with the chargers a year or two ago
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u/Lil_Sebastian90 /r/CFB 5h ago
Sean Payton said in that interview that it was a situation that they had practiced. I remember thinking he was full of shit
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u/AnnonymousPenguin_ /r/CFB 4h ago
Yeah, there was a penalty that brought the ball within field goal range.
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u/Dndrmflnscrtn 6h ago
still waiting on somebody to try the drop kick version. it's sitting right there in the rule
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u/Divinity32 Indiana • Indiana Wesleyan 6h ago
It'll have to be an Aussie kicker who tries the drop kick. It's so much harder to be accurate like that than a standard held kick unless it's how you learned to kick
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u/Lost_And_NotFound /r/CFB 6h ago
Any benefit to that in the rules vs a place kick? Because even those trained in it would still chose to place kick over drop goal.
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u/mynameisevan Nebraska Cornhuskers • Big 8 6h ago
I don’t see any advantage to a drop kick in this situation. The main advantage of a drop kick is that you can surprise the defense with it since you don’t have to set up for a kick, and you can’t do that here. Also there’s still the main reason that they stopped doing drop kicks in the first place, which is that the ball is pointier now and doesn’t bounce as predictably.
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u/Unrelenting_Salsa LSU Tigers • Georgia Bulldogs 4h ago
It'd have to an aussie rules punter in D2 or NAIA. Or D3 I guess, but it's overwhelmingly unlikely for an aussie rules kicker to be in D3 due to no scholarships. It's just a disadvantage to kick like that, and a guy playing at a higher level will have practiced american rules enough to be comfortable with a held kick.
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u/Time-to-get-off-here Oklahoma State Cowboys 6h ago
I’m curious what the motivation to bring it back was
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u/mynameisevan Nebraska Cornhuskers • Big 8 5h ago
Makes me think that there’s some guy on the rules committee that’s always pushing to bring back old archaic rules, and they just decided to let him have this one to shut him up.
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u/HornetsDaBest Iowa Hawkeyes • Minnesota Golden Gophers 6h ago
There was one in the NFL a year or two ago go, I assume that was the impetus
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u/big_sugi Texas A&M Aggies 5h ago
And it’s one of Bill Belichick’s favorite rules. He may have advocated for it when he got hired at UNC.
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u/ThePevster Nevada Wolf Pack • NC State Wolfpack 4h ago
He could have tried it in the Super Bowl against the Falcons but was too scared about it being returned. I’m a little shocked he didn’t. Winning the Super Bowl on an extremely obscure rule might even make Belichick smile
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u/billdasmacks Louisiana • Arkansas 1h ago
Yeah but even in the NFL, where it has always been around, it not only hardly ever gets called but there have only been 7 successful fair catch kicks in NFL history.
A team has to be in a very very specific scenario where a fair catch kick makes any sense (No time left on the clock and the end of the half or 4th quarter, a botched/short punt that is inbounds, a kick returner in a position to be able to fair catch it, a possible penalty to tack on yardage)
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u/Mudrono137 Arkansas Razorbacks • /r/CFB Dead Pool 6h ago
Seems weird to me to ban it in the first place, but yeah the decision to bring it back is odd given that
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u/Unrelenting_Salsa LSU Tigers • Georgia Bulldogs 5h ago
I truly don't understand how D3 coaches can know a quite literally once in a generation rule but coaches with 11 figure contracts don't know how to properly use end of the game and half timeouts.
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u/redshirt_diefirst12 Texas Longhorns 7h ago
Rugby!! 🤗
Edit: also, an appearance by Dicker the Kicker!
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u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware 6h ago
Your typical college (D1) kicker makes about 70% of his kicks from 40 yards behind a long snapper. D3 is probably a coin flip odds of making it from there.
A TD from 30 yards in one play has the odds of about 1 in 10 or 1 in 12.
Kicking (particularly a free kick) makes sense here given the situation.
FWIW, their kicker also made a FG from 46 and had a 69 yard punt (nice) in that same game.
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u/Actually_Im_a_Broom Auburn Tigers 3h ago
>A TD from 30 yards in one play has the odds of about 1 in 10 or 1 in 12.
Yep. 1 in 11 can fuck right off.
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u/Jonjon428 Miami Hurricanes 6h ago
Jim Harbaugh must have loved this. I remember two years ago he did this in the NFL haha
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u/antonimbus Nebraska Cornhuskers 6h ago
I feel like football, more than any other major sport, has the most opportunity for shenanigans like this. As a B1G West fan I totally approve!
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u/Nervous_Metal_9445 Willamette Bearcats • Oregon Ducks 7h ago
Might as well go for it if you have only one sec to run a play, it is better to just do that than to go for a regular field goal
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u/Callsign_Psycopath Georgia Bulldogs • Sickos 7h ago
Kirby, you know what to do.
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u/HAHAHABirdman USC Trojans • Duke Blue Devils 7h ago
My undergrad alma mater mentioned?! Hell yea. Go Red Hawks!
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u/TeacherMan78 Kansas Jayhawks 5h ago
I’m a high school football coach and we practice this every week as the last play of our pregame walkthrough practice. It’s my favorite obscure football rule.
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u/joseph_grizzly 5h ago
when i first read about this rule, i had no idea why teams weren't exploiting it.
>free kick that defense can't contest
>kick from the spot of the catch, not 7 yards back like a FG
>potentially can happen with 0:00 on the clock
sure, there aren't all that many chances for this, but i mean...there's enough. and i'm DYING to see a guy dropkick one rugby/aussie rules style.
if he bounced the football first, THEN dropkicked it, i would lose my shit lmao.
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u/mechajlaw Nebraska Cornhuskers • Arkansas Razorbacks 3h ago
With kickers able to hit from 70 yards now, I can see having an uncontested kick after a punt being useful on occasion.
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u/wx_weasel Illinois • Tennessee 7h ago
Still upset the Patriots didn’t attempt one at the end of Super Bowl LI.
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u/prettyobviousthrow Auburn Tigers 6h ago
Presumably the other team gets the ball at the spot on a miss, and you're probably only going to try within the 40 or so. This seems like a pretty low risk, high upside option. I imagine that teams might just punt it out of bounds to avoid the possibility.
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u/Trick_Situation_4421 Washington Huskies • Paper Bag 25m ago
You can only do it right after a fair catch, so you essentially give up a possession that starts within the opposing 40 for an immediate shot at a long field goal.
I can see why it very rarely happens in the modern sport. Unless time is essentially expiring it's not a great trade.
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u/Windows_66 Iowa Hawkeyes • Drake Bulldogs 5h ago
I know all the discussion is about the free kick, but what was that punt?
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u/-tic-tac James Madison Dukes 3h ago
This also happened last year in the NFL with Cameron Dicker of the Chargers. Weird such an archaic rule gets called twice in a two year span.
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u/WildcatProf Linfield Wildcats 6h ago
Linfield University attempted a fair catch kick in its game against OshKosh on Sept. 5, 2026 at the end of the first half. With 5 seconds left on the clock in the first half, UW-Oshkosh punter John Abernathy punted 31 yards. Linfield’s Reid Gray made a fair catch at the Linfield 41-yard line. Linfield’s Andrew O’Dell, attempted a long fair catch kick. The kick fell just short of the crossbar and was returned by UW-Oshkosh’s Jackson Brush as time expired in the half. Because a fair catch kick utilizes a kickoff format where the defense can’t rush the kicker, it was logged in the official live box score as “O’Dell, Andrew kickoff 58 yards to the UWO01” rather than a traditional field goal attempt.
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u/a2_d2 5h ago
Interesting. They prob should have used “Andrew’s fair catch kick is no good”
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u/WildcatProf Linfield Wildcats 3h ago
Agree that it would be much more informative to log or note this play differently. You wouldn’t necessarily pick up on this unusual play from the official box score, so that’s unfortunate. Somebody would have to look at the play-by-play to recreate that this happened. It would have drawn much more attention had it been successful!
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u/arstin Notre Dame Fighting Irish 5h ago
With kicking being such a head game, and a second on the clock, I think you'd really have to know your kicker to be sure this is better than just losing the yards to kick a normal field goal.
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u/JustAnotherINFTP 4h ago
How are you losing yards?
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u/NewBreadNash 4h ago
On a normal field goal the kicker is like 5-7? Yards from the line of scrimmage for the snap to be back far enough for the defense not to block the kick.
The fair catch kick is kicked at the spot of the fair catch. It also allows for optimal kicking launch angle because kickers don't have to worry about blocks
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u/Actually_Im_a_Broom Auburn Tigers 3h ago
How would kicking a normal field goal, that requires a good snap, good hold, and blocking the defenders easier on the mind than kicking a free kick, warm-up style?
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u/Kodyaufan2 Auburn • Jacksonville State 55m ago
Even more than that, there were years when we had Daniel Carlson kicking where he regularly put kickoffs through the uprights.
That’s a 75 yd field goal. That’s an absolute weapon for the opponent if they’re punting with less than 15 minutes in a half. They’re almost forced to punt out of bounds, which is a shorter kick than keeping it in bounds.
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u/drpeppermax Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 3h ago
Fairly common in high school. Well, I've seen it twice in 50 years
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u/anonymousUTguy Tennessee Volunteers 3h ago
I don’t get it, why not just kick a field goal at this point?
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u/meatfrappe Harvard Crimson • /r/CFB Top Scorer 3h ago
Because the defense can’t defend it, you kick from the spot of the catch rather than 7 yards back where the holder sets up, the kicker can take as much of a running start as they want, and the holder can hold it precisely without having to worry about catching the snap and putting it down.
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u/Kodyaufan2 Auburn • Jacksonville State 51m ago
Cause you can kick farther off a tee than you can from a place kick because you don’t have to kick it high enough to avoid getting blocked.
When Daniel Carlson was our kicker, he would routinely kick the ball through the uprights on kickoffs. That’s would be a 75-yard field goal. He had a few where the ball would hit the net behind the goal post, meaning those kicks might have been good from 80. Those are impossible with a snap, hold, rush, etc.
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u/MahjongDaily Iowa State Cyclones 7h ago
I love how you can hear the rules nerd in the studio explaining what's happening