College Student Kicks Three Field Goals, Denied New Car Over A Split-Second Technicality

Football season is in full swing and that means there’s an assortment of contests to capitalize on the fall tradition. One of them was a Kicks for Cash competition at Purdue University and it’s painting a dealership group in a terrible light.

According to the Purdue Exponent, Zachary Spangler became the second student in history to successfully kick 20, 30, and 40-yard field goals. This meant he should have won a two-year lease on a car from the Rohrman Automotive Group, but they’re claiming a technicality voided the result.

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The publication says the director of operations at Bob Rohrman Honda emailed Spangler and said their insurance company reviewed video of the event and his “40-yard field goal was not kicked in time by five one-hundredths of a second.”

The dealership also reportedly provided a video showing the kick from four angles with a 30-second timer. In it, the football is said to be placed with just 1.5 seconds left on the clock. Unsurprisingly, Spangler couldn’t complete the kick before time ran out.

An earlier version of the Kicks for Cash contest

However, as the publication and CBS Sports noted, “When it comes to football at any level, the kick would count as long as it’s snapped before the clock hits zero.” In effect, it shouldn’t matter and Spangler should get a car.

Speaking with the student paper, Spangler said he’s not upset about the car as he has one that “runs just fine,” but he’s mad that “I hit the 40-yarder and they’re saying I didn’t because it came off my foot five-hundredths of a second late.” He went on to say, it “feels weird that the insurance company is splitting hairs over five-hundredths of a second.”