Head Coach Ryan Day (left) joins the cast of ESPN’s College Gameday to talk about the upcoming Game against the Texas Longhorns. Credit: Liam Ahern | Sports Photo Editor
Logan Pallo stood in line at ESPN College GameDay’s set outside of St. John Arena. It was 2:30 a.m. and he had come to be part of the pre-game experience before Ohio State took on the Texas Longhorns.
He left 9 ½ hours later with a check for $250,000.
Pallo, a second-year in business finance, was selected for Pat McAfee’s Kicking Contest, which gives a student at each College GameDay stop the chance to win cash for kicking a ball 33 yards through goal post uprights.
As McAfee asked if Pallo felt any nerves prior to the kick on the broadcast, Pallo was focused on the task that could change his life forever.
“No, not at all,” Pallo said.
Pallo was one of thousands of Buckeye and Longhorn fans who gathered in Remembrance Park during the early morning hours to share in the College GameDay traditions.
In addition to watching the analysis and picks from the crew that includes Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard, the first 300 fans at the set were entered into a raffle to compete for McAfee’s kick.
When the clock struck 9:30 a.m., a staffer pulled a raffle number and Pallo was shocked to find he was holding the winning number.
“My number at the time was 434, so when they started with the number zero, I was like okay, so it’s not mine,” Pallo said. “But then I remembered there was a zero in the front of my number. Then another number (came down), then another. Finally, it ended up being mine.”
The competition started in 2023, and McAfee has offered as much as $800,000 to a winner. Saturday, as Pallo lined up for the kick around 11 a.m., McAfee had a surprise — on a whim he upped the amount from $100,000 to $250,000.
Just before the kick, they were joined on set by movie star Glen Powell, a Texas fan. McAfee seemed to do all he could to psych Pallo out, including noting the call of nature in the kicking area by Herbstreit’s dog, Peter.
“You got the mascots staring you down!” he screamed. “They don’t want you to win. Glen doesn’t want you to win. Peter is taking a dump in the middle of a kicking contest.”
“I think that poop was a bad omen,” Powell said.
Neither the celebrity nor the circumstance fazed Pallo.
“I was kind of blocking out everything,” Pallo said. “I heard everything that Pat was saying, what Glen (Powell) was saying and Kirk (Herbstreit) when he was helping me out, as well. I heard all that, but everything else was just kind of background noise.”
He squared up, sprinted forward and drilled the kick with distance to spare.
The celebration was immediate as college mascots, Powell and Herbstreit swarmed him, jumping up and down.
Pallo described it as one of the best moments of his life.
“I feel amazing right now,” Pallo said moments after the kick went through the uprights. “That was amazing.”
Pallo was not a complete novice when it came to field goals, having supported his brother, Xavier, a high school kicker in Northeast Ohio.
“I’ll shag balls for him,” Pallo said. “[I’ve attempted] no more than probably 20 to 30 kicks.”
Pallo was reticent about when and how he will receive his winnings, seeking privacy about the operation.
His phone buzzed throughout his time at the game Saturday and on Sunday, but his fame was short-lived.
“A few congrats out of the blue would happen, but other than that, everything else just went back to normal,” he said.
Pallo said his most-asked question was if he really got dog poop on his shoes.
“As much as Pat screamed it at the top of his lungs and made it nationally known, I looked at my shoes right after and I didn’t step in anything,” Pallo said.
Pallo is just the second student to split the uprights on the first try in McAfee’s Kicking Contest.
Despite making the kick with ease, Pallo believes his brother has a better chance of becoming a Division I kicker.
“No, my brother can kick about 15 yards farther than me and he’s about three years younger,” Pallo said. “I’d give the nod to him.”
