At the start of the third quarter of the Vanderbilt-Missouri game Saturday, Sarah Fuller made college football history. By taking the field for the opening second-half kickoff for the Commodores, Fuller became the first woman to play in an SEC and Power 5 game.
Winless Vanderbilt has struggled with kicking this season. Some of the team’s specialists were not available to play because of COVID-19 protocols, so it turned to Fuller, a 6-foot-2 Wylie, Texas native and senior goalkeeper on Vanderbilt’s soccer team, which finished its season last Sunday with its first SEC Tournament title since 1994. And not long after that, Fuller was with the football team practicing kicking through the uprights this week.
Related: 5 things to know about Sarah Fuller
And, as The Tennessean‘s Adam Sparks reported Saturday, Fuller was the only kicker to travel with Vanderbilt for the Missouri game, joining specialists punter/holder Harrison Smith and long snapper Wesley Schelling.
So when it was time for the second-half kickoff, Fuller stepped on the field for a 30-yard kick to Missouri’s 35-yard line.
HISTORY MADE 👏@VandyFootball’s Sarah Fuller is the first woman in college football history to play in a Power 5 game. pic.twitter.com/zhSaLqa3Bg
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) November 28, 2020
Prior to Vanderbilt’s road game against Missouri, Commodores head coach Derek Mason said Fuller was an option this weekend because “she’s got a strong leg.” Mason also told ESPN 102.5 The Game this week:
“For us, talking to Sarah, she’s a champ, and no pun intended. Just coming off an SEC championship in soccer and then coming out and just looking at what we do and how we do it, and she’s a complete competitor. She’s an option for us, so right now, that’s where we sit.”
Vanderbilt struggled in the first half to get into Missouri territory — forget about field goal range — so Fuller didn’t have a chance to play. But after halftime with the Tigers leading the Commodores, 21-0, Mason turned to the goalkeeper turned football kicker.
Sarah Fuller visits with her family before the @VandyFootball vs. Missouri game kicks off 💛 pic.twitter.com/1B2QrWJ0Qz
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) November 28, 2020
Although Fuller is the first woman to play in a Power 5 game, she’s not the first to play in college football. Women are still given few opportunities to play, but several women helped pave the way for this moment, including Liz Heaston, the first woman to score in a college football game (Willamette, 1997), and Katie Hnida, the first woman to score at the FBS level (New Mexico, 2003).
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