PROVO, Utah — The right kick at the right time brought with it some BYU pride, $3 million and a lifetime of memories for 21-year-old Carter Smith.
"They put me right here, right. Cosmo jumps out of an airplane, he's got the ball that I'm going to kick, and I think we put the ball right here,” Carter recalled.
They lined up the ball right on the lawn at BYU, as Carter stepped up to be that one lucky student to compete in Pat McAfee's "Kicking Is Easy" contest Saturday morning.
"I was shaking so bad, the nerves were crazy, which obviously didn't help when you're kicking," he said.
Meanwhile, his family in Iowa was getting bombarded with texts.
"We started getting texts that Carter was live on TV," Hannah Smith, Carter's mom, said. "We knew he was in line but we had no idea that he had been chosen or that he was in the running for the top 300, which is what they narrowed it down to initially."
With eyes on him from across the country, Carter missed his first kick but he was given a second chance.
"I wasn't expecting to make the second kick. The first one was alright, but it just wasn’t the [right] distance, neither the angle,” Carter said. “When I put it through the uprights, my immediate reaction was just ... I was jumping up and down. I was so happy."
With that second field goal, Carter became a millionaire.
"The crowd came in, they threw me up, I was surrounded by the cheerleaders," Carter said. "It was a remarkable feeling. Truly amazing."
"It's been a blur. I mean, this was just a little more than 24 hours ago this was kind of happening, I guess," Matt Smith, Carter's father, said. "It's starting to set in. It's still surreal for all of us, I think."
It's surreal for the entire family, but not really because of the money.
"I still want to be a dentist. It's not like I want to drop out of college now that I have this money," Carter said. "If anything, it's going to be an opportunity to be a dentist a little bit easier and to be able to help people faster."
Carter said he plans to invest most of the money he's earned and pay for school.