The Longest Field Goal in College Football: What We Know

In Abilene, Texas, autumn had arrived. The sky was overcast and the 14-degree air was reminiscent of the scent of peppermint. The wind? 22 km/h with a 19 km/h tailwind. 59 meters was all that stood in the way of Ove Johansson and history.

At that time, Johansson kicked a 69-yard field goal against East Texas State, setting the record for the longest field goal in college football history.

Homecoming weekend brought the crowds to Abilene Christian University and Shotwell Stadium on October 16, 1976. The stands were packed with students, faculty, staff, parents and alumni. They knew a record would be broken that day. Wilbert Montgomery was one touchdown away from surpassing fellow college touchdown record (63) held by fellow college football player Walter Payton. What they didn't know was the dialogue that preceded the game between ACU teammates Johansson and Montgomery. Both agreed to set records that day.

Two of Johansson's pre-match warm-up kicks from 64 meters were good.

“The leg worked,” Johansson told NCAA.com in 2019.

Wilbert scored his long-awaited touchdown. Johansson felt no pressure, but something strange sent his adrenaline racing. Ten minutes before he and the Wildcats' special forces gathered at their own 41-yard line, Texas A&M's Tony Franklin kicked a 65-yard field goal (and another 64-yard one later in the game) against Baylor, securing the longest field goal attempt in college football history.

“It was exciting to get on the field and know that if I make that field goal, I'll be doing something that no one has ever done in this sport,” Johansson said.

The kicking gods traveled 270 miles up the road from College Station to sprinkle magical kick dust on Johansson's right foot in Abilene. He hit it so well from 69 yards that the referees said he would have hit it well from 75 yards.

Some people see the shot as a fluke, as if mystical forces were at work that day, as if the wind gave the ball extra life – all to underestimate Johansson's achievement.

Even the referees were a little amused.

“One of the referees was pretty mad because he had to run all the way there (to get the ball back),” Johansson laughed in his Swedish-Texas accent.

He didn't know if he could do it, but he knew he was capable.

Many say the moment his foot struck the football sounded like a shotgun blast. The same people believed the crowd at Abilene's 41-yard line was a hoax. Johansson could hear laughter as he lined up. “But my wife April said, '10-15 seconds before you kicked, you could hear a pin drop in the stadium.'”

Here is the original footage of the record kick:

Ron Hadfield, Abilene's former editor of the student newspaper The Optimist and current editor of the school's alumni magazine, remembers covering the game from the sidelines that day. He remembers people asking coach Wally Bullington why he was trying to kick a field goal from that spot on the field.

Bullington replied: “Well, we needed three points.”

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Before that game, Johansson had only kicked four college field goals. He grew up in Sweden and spent most of his life on the soccer field. Ironically, his dream of playing soccer took him to Irving, Texas, and Dallas in 1972, where he played for a European team.

Each stop led to another important point in his life. During one game, a girl in the stands caught his eye and he spent halftime trying to use the 24 words of English he knew to get her phone number. He succeeded and the two dated for five to six months before he got a call.

While coaching a team in Colorado Springs, the Davis and Elkins College football coach witnessed Johansson play and soon offered him a football scholarship. He moved to West Virginia and was named an All-American.

The childhood game he loved and moved across the ocean for, however, was nothing like the girl in Texas. April enrolled at Abilene Christian, and Johansson sacrificed his athletic scholarship to do the same. The Wildcats didn't have a men's soccer team, so to stay in Abilene, he had to try out for the football team. Two kickers already had spots on the team, and Bullington gave Johansson a regrettable tryout.

In hindsight, the whole thing was not regrettable. “I said, 'This little baby is going to fly,' and I kicked off and the ball flew through the posts and over the chain-link fence of the sports hall.”

Coach Bullington replied, “Ove, you just made the team.”

At the end of the season, he was selected in the 12th round of the 1977 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers, making him the oldest drafted player in NFL history at 28 years and 281 days old and the first Swedish-born player in the NFL.

He spent three years moving between three different teams.

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Johannson died unexpectedly on September 30, 2023. He enjoyed 47 years of marriage to April, the woman he fell in love with while playing football – the same woman he sacrificed his football dream for. This led him on a path of many personal and professional achievements.

The Swede coached the local high school football team in his spare time and spent Saturday mornings reminiscing about his childhood self in front of the television. Looking through the LED-lit box at the 100-meter-long field with the football goalposts at opposite ends, he remembered the 1958 FIFA World Cup. That year he was scheduled to attend the quadrennial event in his Swedish hometown of Gothenburg, and experienced the Premier League and all the other televised football events as a vicariously.

Until his death, people asked him to talk about that miraculous day in 1976.