5/26/2019 football Edit

Mississippi: Josh McGee

Josh McGeee was the primary placekicker for some of the best UNC football teams ever assembled. (UNC Communications)

Andrew Jones • TarHeelIllustrated

Publisher

Andrew Jones has covered sports for 26 years, including all major college & professional sports for daily newspapers & national sites. He's done radio and TV & is entering his seventh year at THI.

During the four years Josh McGee was North Carolina’s primary placekicker, he experienced completely opposite ends of the football spectrum.

In McGee’s first two seasons in 1996 and 1997, the Tar Heels went a combined 21-3 and finished ranked among the nation’s top 10 teams both seasons. As a junior, and in the first season after Mack Brown left for Texas, UNC went 7-5 defeating San Diego State in the Las Vegas Bowl.

As a senior, Carolina plummeted nearly to the bottom of the ACC, finishing 3-8 with a series of embarrassing defeats.

Along the way, McGee, a native of Pearl, MS, turned in one of the best kicking careers in UNC history. He was 52-for-72 on field goals and 115-for-120 on extra points finishing his career with 271 points.

McGee’s longest field goal went for 46 yards in the biggest football game UNC has ever played, Nov. 8, 1997, when No. 2 Florida State visited No. 5 UNC. The crowd of 62,000 that night remains the largest crowd ever at Kenan Stadium.

On Nov. 20, 1999, McGee set a UNC single-game record by converting six field goals (on 6 attempts) in a 38-0 rout of Duke in Chapel Hill. One of his kicks that day went for 50 yards and he also added a pair of extra points. In addition, McGee also tied an ACC record with six field goals in a game that afternoon.

“I really wanted to stop after the fourth one,” McGee said after the game. “But the coaches got on me and said I was kicking all of our field goals the rest of the day. They said they wanted to send me out the way I should go.

“Luckily, I made the last two.”