It's actually 33 yards which is a different deal. I was never even a moderate athlete. But when I was a manager in high school, just with just a tee, a ball and me, I could make a 25-yarder pretty consistently after a lot of practice. There's a reason they do 33 yards. It's better than a decent challenge. They also snuggle up the surrrounding fans, so that a good athlete can't back up quite as far as they need to give it a good shot.
Also, the former quarterback, Kirk Herbstreit doesn't do a good job of holding for the kick. His leg crowds the ball, further limiting the kicker's shot at giving it a really good kick. And there's a whole lot of pressure. I guess they're up to $100K, now. It was over 90K last week. A lot of us who can make a free throw over two thirds of the time, would be challenged to make one shot for $90,000. There was one kicker a little over a month ago, who made a pretty good straight kick, but it came up a little short.
All those factors were intended when they set this up. Add to it the shortness of time to prepare for it, with many trying is less than kicking shoes, and these results aren't very surprising. Half the people who get their name drawn to take their chance, aren't great athletes. The ones I've heard interviewed weren't even athletes. Several said they'd never kicked a ball.
