Michigan Panthers win season opener on 64-yard field goal in final seconds

When the home crowd at Ford Field sees a winning field goal of more than 60 yards, it usually goes against them, leaving them stunned for all the wrong reasons.

But on Saturday, spring football returned to Detroit with the Michigan Panthers starting their 2024 UFL season in dramatic fashion, hitting a 64-yard field goal with seconds to spare to beat the St. Louis Battlehawks, 18-16, in their home opener.

It was Jake Bates who ending up being the hero, hitting the long-distance kick with just eight seconds left in front of a loud crowd of more than 9,000. He actually hit the 64-yarder twice, with St. Louis blowing a timeout before the first attempt in an icing situation that ended up not working. Both attempts were not only good, they were right down the middle.

"I mean, that's why you practice so hard so that every kick can be the same. That just comes from years and years of repetition," Bates said.

Starting quarterback E.J. Perry, who only started one game last year for the Panthers, overcame a rough start when he threw two first-half interceptions to finish 12-for-24 with 176 yards passing while rushing for two go-ahead touchdowns in the second half.

"(In the beginning) I just felt like he was trying to push too hard to make a play," Panthers head coach Mike Nolan said. "Then he settled down and did what he always does, he finds a way to win the football game."

Perry got them to field-goal range in the first place, with Bates telling Perry before the final drive to "get him (Bates) to the 45 (yard line)," but Perry thought the assumption of a 60-plus yard field goal didn't add up and wanted to get to the 35. Even though the offense only got to the Battlehawks' 47, it was still enough.

The kicker (no pun intended) for this entire situation is that Bates hadn't attempted an in-game field goal since high school, with this being his first game in charge of kicking duties for the Panthers.

"He kicked just like that in practice, and it got my attention because at that point we were keeping things in the 40s and 50s," Nolan said. "But I sat there and watched him kick that thing 65 yards in practice and he did it a couple of times. Just like you saw it, it went right through the middle."

The first half was mostly scoreless until Battlehawks took advantage of the second Perry interception, going 87 yards in the final eight minutes before settling for a 36-yard field goal to enter halftime with a slim 3-0 lead.

Perry came out of the second half strong, finding Cole Hikutini down the middle for a 41-yard gain before finishing the job himself with a QB Draw down the middle for the 4-yard touchdown. With no extra-point kicks in the UFL, Matthew Colburn II ran it in from 5 yards out for the extra point as the Panthers took a 7-3 lead with 5:26 left in the third.

After a failed Nolan challenge on a false start from Battlehawks before the end of the third, the defense did its part by stopping Wayne Gallman II on fourth-and-1 from the Panthers' 5 for no gain.

A holding penalty and a sack on Perry led to punting back to the Battlehawks, where a long drive ended in McCarron connecting with Jake Sutherland for a 5-yard touchdown to retake the lead. The Panthers forced an incompletion to keep it a two-point deficit with just over eight minutes remaining.

After a strong return from Simms to the Panthers' 44, the running game did the work with Hillis rushing for 42 yards in the first two plays and ending with Perry scrambling 8 yards into the end zone as the Panthers retook the lead. The Panthers would add two points from the ensuing try to make it it a 15-9 lead.

McCarron and the Battlehawks had one more drive to answer, and did on fourth-and-5, with McCarron and Marceell Ateman connecting near the sideline for a touchdown to take a 16-15 lead with less than a minute remaining.

That led to the final drive, on which Perry only completed two passes and would led the Panthers to Battlehawks 47, which was close enough for the winning field goal.

Kameron Goodwill is a freelance writer.