Pat McAfee Confesses to Being Deceived by Georgia Athlete After $800K College GameDay Blowup Leads To Regret
Pat McAfee and many others were left jaw-dropped by a Hoosier who stole the show at the former pro’s weekly kicking contest. Henry Silver, a Georgia Bulldogs student, nailed the contest on ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday and drew praise and a hug from McAfee. But what is even more incredible is the backstory that links Silver and McAfee, which left the former Indianapolis Colts punter emotional.
Initially, a student named Belle Sessions won the draw to serve as the kicker, but since she didn’t think she could make the field goal, she handed her spot to Silver. From Fisher, Indiana, native drilled the 33-yard field goal right down the middle with ease, leading to loud cheers from the crowd with McAfee sprinting and giving him a big hug.
Later on The Pat McAfee show, the former NFL star admitted to being surprised by Silver’s impressive kick. “This wasn’t some high-school kicker showing up to flex,” McAfee clarified. “I don’t care if he’s been a high school kicker. He’s obviously played soccer—I think at Hamilton Southeastern, I saw a lot of people talk about it. But for him to strike that ball, that was good from like 40.”
He added that despite not being in proper kicking shoes, Silver left everyone stunned. “Not good kicking shoes, not good kicking ball, not good kicking surface. He’s been there since 6 p.m. the night before so it’s not like he’s warming up.”
Silver and Sessions agreed to split what was initially supposed to be a $150,000 prize. However, McAfee increased it to $200,000, before doubling it to $400,000. McAfee also announced that he would match the amount with a $400,000 donation to hurricane relief efforts. During his conversation on his show, McAfee then brought up the connection he shared with Silver.
Before taking the kick, Silver revealed he’s an Indianapolis Colts fan. The profile picture on his Instagram profile shows him posing with McAfee during his playing days. Talk about destiny. McAfee mentioned how he came to realize this after someone shared the information with him.
He added,
“We were in the car I think leaving the set and I opened my phone and I think it was I don’t know if it was somebody from West Virginia. Somebody texted me and was like ‘yo did you see this kid’s Instagram profile’ and I was like no. And it was they sent the picture.” However, due to connectivity issues, he couldn’t download the picture to see what was being referred to before it finally loaded after some time.
“Once it loads I like almost got emotional like I almost got like pretty teary eyed because I thought about Henry and like he wanted to do this that’s why he got there at 6 p.m,” he said. McAfee then mentioned he cannot wait to catch up with Henry again, which will probably give us some details about his Instagram profile picture.
“I can’t wait to catch up with ol Hank. I assume whenever he comes home in the summer we will have him through here at the Thunderdome but he was awesome,” McAfee said.
The Bulldogs end losing streak with a win over Tennessee
Pat McAfee does this contest each week of GameDay during the season. Where previous editions couldn’t produce a winner, this one surely did. It was quite the scene on Georgia’s campus. GameDay was on Georgia’s campus for Saturday’s ‘Playoff Decider’ sort of game. The Bulldogs came in with two Ls after losing to Ole Miss last week, while Tennessee only had one loss.
As for the Dawgs, a loss would have eliminated the team from the College Football Playoff race since it is already at No. 12 in the latest rankings. Call Silver’s 33-yarder a lucky charm, cause they won, and with quite the margin, 30-17. If the CFP started before that, Georgia would be the first team out due to Boise leapfrogging ahead.
