AFL Opening Kickoff Leads To TD For Kicking Team, Announcers Lose It

It seems pretty likely that this is the first touchdown on the opening kickoff in football history to be scored by the kicking team, right? Ah, Arena Football.

Here's the sequence of events: Iowa Barnstormers kicker Ross Gornall doinks the opening kickoff off the bottom of the frame that holds up Arena Football's two nets (designed to give returning teams a chance to bring back missed kicks); the ball bounces out to the 10-yard-line, where it caroms off another player; it bounces up in the air, just high enough for Barnstormers receiver Darius Reynolds to snag it and score a touchdown; all of the hilarity of a local broadcast of an Arena Football game trying to wrap its head around something incredible ensues.

This all transpired last Friday night, and the San Antonio Talons compounded getting scored on by the kick coverage team by going down 20-7 in the second quarter. But the Barnstormers' kicking luck was clearly all spent on the game's first play: A failed extra point in the first quarter left them needing a field goal late, and San Antonio blocked that kick to preserve a 35-34 win.

[AFL]