How do you make a game-winning field goal?

Campus & Community How do you make a game-winning field goal? Kieran Corr preparing to kick his game-winning field goal.Harvard Athletics November 20, 2025 3 min read It’s all in the preparation, Crimson kicker says.

And don’t worry. Either way, you’re only as good (or bad) as your last kick. Part of the Wondering series A series of random questions answered by Harvard experts. Crimson kicker Kieran Corr secured a 45-43 win over Penn last Saturday by hitting a 53-yard field goal with just five seconds on the clock.

We asked the sophomore: How do you stay cool under pressure? Take a deep breath and just trust in your abilities and stay confident. For kicking, you kick 1,000 balls over a season in practice, and then how many field goal attempts do you actually get?

Maybe 15 or 20, if you’re lucky. You just have to be ready no matter what opportunity comes to you at any point in the game. I’m not trying to teach myself how to kick the ball — like have your foot at this angle and swing this hard. I’m really just trying to keep it simple and trust my abilities.

My mindset is if I just do everything I’ve been doing, this should go in, not that I need to change anything or rise to the occasion or do anything special. When I run out there on the field, I try to get out there first or just run toward the upright. I’m just trying to focus on the kick and not anything else beforehand. It really just comes down to trying to keep my body loose — doing practice moves and then taking my steps back the same way every time.

Three steps back, two to the left. Then getting my feet in good position. I look up, and I give the holder a nod when I feel ready. It’s just a routine at that point, trying to minimize the distraction, not thinking about anything else.

Just follow through. That was my first game-winning kick. So the game was just over after that kick, which was such a weird feeling to me. As soon as I saw it go in, my instant reaction was, “All right, let’s make the next one.” I was just instantly thinking about the next kick.

I’m always just thinking about making the next kick. And right now, that’s my mentality. How can I focus on the next kick at Yale? A big thing with kicking is that you’re never as good as they say you are, and you’re never as bad as they say you are, because you’re only as good as your last kick.

Nothing we do during the game is going to radically change how we’re going to perform, because all that work has been put in prior. It’s exactly like an exam, because you study and you do all the work beforehand, and then that might be like 95 percent and then 5 percent is your actual performance on the exam.

You put in so much work just to show a tiny bit of results. There’s nothing you can do to affect the outcome of the kick, other than just kicking the ball. So there’s no point in worrying about external things. Just control your thoughts, and then the results will follow.

— As told to Anna Lamb/Harvard Staff Writer