A year later, Colin Goodfellow has no regrets about Missouri play that ended his UK career

The hero of Kentucky football’s win at Missouri a year ago will be back in Kroger Field this weekend as the Wildcats look for their eighth win in the last nine meetings with the Tigers.

If former Wildcats punter Colin Goodfellow is recognized on the field at any point in the game, Big Blue Nation will have its opportunity to thank him again for the game-saving play in Columbia a year ago that ended his UK career and changed college football rules in the process.

With Kentucky leading 21-17 and 2:25 remaining in last season’s game, Goodfellow reacted quickly to field a ball near the goal line that was snapped over the top of his head. He was able to punt the ball just past the Wildcats’ 30-yard line before being tackled by a Missouri defender.

Missouri was flagged for roughing the kicker on the play, giving Kentucky an automatic first down and allowing the Wildcats to grind enough time off the clock to ice the win. Goodfellow did not get to watch the finish though as he was carted off the field after the play with what ended up being a season-ending knee injury.

“Didn’t know where it went, didn’t really care,” Goodfellow told the Herald-Leader this week of his game-saving punt. “I knew I’d got the ball off and it wasn’t a touchdown.”

The origins of Goodfellow’s game-saving play actually came earlier in the season in the Wildcats’ win at Florida.

That game also saw the ball snapped over Goodfellow’s head on a punt, but this time the ball reached the end zone and Goodfellow felt he did not have time to pick it up before a Florida defender reached him. Instead, he kicked the ball out of the back of the end zone, choosing to take a penalty that would result in a safety rather than risk Florida recovering the ball for a touchdown.

When Goodfellow returned to the sideline in Gainesville after that play, he and UK’s coaches realized they were not certain what would have happened if Goodfellow kicked the ball out of play before it reached the end zone. After consulting with an official the next week, Goodfellow concluded kicking the ball before it reached the end zone might result in a dead ball penalty that would give the opponent possession only yards from a possible touchdown.

So when the snap sailed over his head again at Missouri and Goodfellow realized he could corral it before reaching the end zone, he decided to try to make something out of nothing. He did not even realize he had drawn a roughing the punter flag until he had already been carted off the field.

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz bemoaned the call after the game, arguing that since Goodfellow fielded the ball almost 40 yards behind the line of scrimmage he could not have reasonably still been considered a protected punter just because he was still in the tackle box. After the season, the NCAA took Drinkwitz’s argument to heart, changing the rule to eliminate any penalties for roughing or running into the kicker if the kicker was displaced more than 5 yards from the position of the snap.

“I think it was obvious that the judgment there needs to be changed, if somebody was going to misinterpret or misjudge that,” Drinkwitz said this week when asked about the rule change on the SEC teleconference. “I was at the National Football Foundation dinner where (NCAA coordinator of officials) Steve Shaw came up to me and said, yeah, they were going to have to make a change, because that was clearly not the intent of the rule. So if it’s for the betterment of the game, great.

“At the end of the day, that’s not what costs us. If the result of the play wasn’t a touchdown, we still would’ve had to go score, and there was plenty of opportunities for us to win that game outside of that play.”

Goodfellow has mixed feelings about the rule change.

“Obviously it’s pretty cool when you do change the face of college football, but at the same time if that happened again to me, I get hurt for no reason really,” he said. “So, I’m a little disappointed now that happened that punters are less protected. A lot of people are going to give me heat for that, but in all reality we are.

“... Would I change a thing even if the rule was in or not? No, I would do the same thing, whatever I could for the team, by any means. But it does kind of suck that we are now less protected.”

The game-saving punt was just the start of a surreal sequence of events for Goodfellow.

When a Kentucky fan found Goodfellow’s personal Venmo account and posted it to social media, other fans began sending him donations in honor of his sacrifice. Without access to his phone, Goodfellow was unaware of the Venmo campaign until assistant athletic director Mark Hill told him after the game, while he was still being examined by doctors in Missouri.

Hill instructed Goodfellow to not spend any of the money provided by fans until the UK compliance department checked with the NCAA to see if it would affect his eligibility. While the NCAA never ruled on the issue, the compliance department eventually advised Goodfellow to donate at least a portion of the money to charity, which he did. He made sure not to use any of the money he did keep until after his eligibility had been exhausted.

“It was a whirlwind 24 hours,” Goodfellow said. “A lot of pain. A lot of uncomfortable seat switches on the plane home, that’s for sure. But I was very happy I was able to be home instead of staying in Mizzou.”

Now recovered from the knee injury, Goodfellow has not given up on his dream to continue punting at the professional level.

He received a mini camp invite from the Washington Commanders in the spring. That opportunity did not result in a contract, but he continues to train and has a tryout with the XFL scheduled for later this month.

In the meantime, Goodfellow is using his nursing degree and helping coach special teams at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

Goodfellow’s punt was just the latest in a line of recent controversial finishes in the Kentucky-Missouri series. Most of those calls have gone in Kentucky’s favor, leading to ire from Missouri fans, players and coaches.

The few times that Goodfellow has watched the video of his season-ending injury, he could not help but notice the number of boos that rained down as he was carted off the field. The string of that moment was still on Goodfellow’s mind when Drinkwitz referenced the “very difficult call against Kentucky” as a moment of adversity his team had to rally from during his appearance at SEC Media Days in July.

“They can say what they’d like, but until you feel the pain I did,” Goodfellow said. “… Like I said with Drinkwitz (in July), I’m sure he didn’t have as rough a recovery from the game as I did.”

Saturday

Missouri at No. 24 Kentucky

When: 7:30 p.m.

TV: SEC Network

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Missouri 5-1 (1-1 SEC), Kentucky 5-1 (2-1)

Series: Kentucky leads 9-4

Last meeting: Kentucky won 21-17 on Nov. 5, 2022, in Columbia, Missouri

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