This is an excerpt from Berry Tramel's Wednesday's ScissorTales. Read it in its entirety here.
For 49 years, the longest field goal in football history was kicked by Ove Johansson, a soccer player who, while playing American football for Abilene Christian on October 16 against East Texas State, kicked a 69-yard field goal.
Johansson died at age 75 in 2023. His status lasted two years longer. On August 9, Oklahoman Cam Little nailed a 70-yard field goal for the Jacksonville Jaguars against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Little, who kicked at the University of Arkansas and Southmoore High School, does not get credit for the National Football League record. That distinction still belongs to Justin Tucker, whose 66-yarder for the Baltimore Ravens in 2021 came in the regular season. Exhibition games don’t count toward NFL records.
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But no matter. Little gets credit for the longest field goal in American football history, same as Johansson got credit before him, even though his kick came in Abilene Christian’s NAIA days.
Johansson’s 69-yarder came amid the wild kicking days of the 1970s, when kicking tees were allowed in college. In 1977, Arkansas’ Steve Little (no relation) and Texas’ Russell Erxleben each kicked 67-yarders. Wichita State’s Joe Williams matched that in 1978, and Fort Hays State’s Tom Odle did, too, in 1988.
Texas A&M’s Tony Franklin had nailed a 65-yard field goal in 1976; Kansas State’s Martin Gramatica matched it in 1998.
Cross-country field goals became a thing in the 1970s; the New Orleans Saints’ Tom Dempsey became the first kicker to break the 60-yard barrier, with a 63-yarder in 1970. No other NFL kicker reached at least 60 yards for 14 years, and Dempsey’s NFL record lasted until Matt Prater’s 64-yarder for the Denver Broncos in 2013.
The NFL never allowed kicking tees on field goals, but college football allowed them until 1989. And both the NFL and college football have narrowed the goal posts over the decades, the colleges most recently in 1991. Gramatica’s 1998 field goal is as much a college record as any other.
The high school record is 68 yards, by Dirk Borgognone of Reno, Nevada, in 1985. That was with the use of a tee.
Little’s 70-yard field goal won’t be the record, and that’s the correct call. Coaches don’t care about exhibition-game results, so trotting out a kicker for a 70-yard field goal has few ramifications. Lane Kiffin, as coach of the Raiders, let Sebastian Janikowski attempted a 76-yard field goal in an exhibition game.
That never would happen in a regular-season or playoff game, since on missed field goals now, the ball is placed at the spot of the hold for the kick. A miss on a 70-yarder would give possession to the opponent at the kicking team’s 40-yard line.
But no matter. Little’s 70-yarder moves the bar a little back, and Jags coach Liam Cohen is more likely to let Little take a swing at history sometime this season.
From Ove Johansson to Dirk Borgognone to Tom Dempsey to Justin Tucker, kickers have pushed the limits on field goals. And Cam Little now leads the club.
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
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