McCall Bennett joins select group of female college kickers
VALDOSTA, Ga. (BVM) – In the over 100 years of college football, female players have not made many contributions until recently. Since 1997, about a dozen female players have taken the gridiron, especially at the kicking position where athletes such as Jacksonville State’s Ashley Martin, New Mexico’s Katie Hnida and Vanderbilt’s Sarah Fuller have made waves across the sport. On Saturday, Valdosta State redshirt freshman kicker McCall Bennett added her name to the list.
With 6 minutes and 25 seconds left in the game and the Blazers up comfortably over Point University, Bennett converted a PAT, becoming the first female player to play in a game in program history. This made her one of the select few females to score in NCAA football history.
With McCall Bennett’s extra point, she becomes the first female football player in Valdosta State history to go along with the first female football player to score a point as the Blazers extend their lead to 63-10 #GoBlazers🔥 @valdostastatefb
— Valdosta State Blazers (@BlazerAthletics) September 2, 2023
Kicking is nothing new to Bennett. She has always had a good leg as evidenced by her experience on the Cambridge High School soccer team where she scored four goals with eight shots on goal in 39 career games as a forward for the Bears.
Bennett also excelled as a kicker on the gridiron for Cambridge as well. The daughter of Bears head coach Craig Bennett, McCall was a consistent scorer for her dad’s squad. As a senior, McCall connected on 44 of 46 PAT attempts in 11 games. She was so consistent in fact that she was selected Georgia High School Association Class 6A Region 7 second-team kicker in both her junior and senior years.
@mccallbennett i love you cambridge football. thank you for everything.
McCall has received plenty of attention thanks to her historic kick. She was even featured on the popular social media page No Context College Football where the post received over 5,000 likes, 175 reposts and 51 quotes on X, formerly Twitter.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) September 2, 2023
Now a member of the Blazers, McCall has quickly embraced her status as a female in a male-dominated sport. She has posted numerous videos to her TikTok account mentioning her relationship with her team and the sport as a whole.
@mccallbennett
After leaving her mark on both program and college football history, McCall will look to keep breaking records and setting marks. With the NCAA career record at 87 points for a female kicker, McCall has a chance to become the highest-scoring female player of all time.
