The Dallas Renegades played their first Saturday home game ever this past weekend. While the outcome wasn’t exactly what the home fans wanted, perfection remained intact for one man: Austin MacGinnis.

Where did the mysterious MacGinnis come from? How did he land in the XFL? Today we take a look at the journey to the Dallas Renegades for Austin “McGOATis”.

Life Before XFL

Career Kickoff

MacGinnis football life started in a small town called Wedowee, Alabama at Randolph County High School. The future Renegades place-kicker would transfer to Prattville High School for his senior year in 2013. He finished as one of the nation’s top kicker prospects according to sites like Rivals.com and 247sports.com. MacGinnis would land on the winning side of the All-American game in Houston. Here are just some of his impressive high school stats:

Participated in the National Underclassmen Challenge

Handled punts, field goals and kickoffs for the Prattville Lions, making seven of 10 field goals, including a 50-yarder

Converted six of nine field goals and made all of his extra points as a junior while attending Randolph County High School

81 percent touchbacks on kickoffs with Randolph County

Kentucky Bound

As one of the top kicker prospects, MacGinnis would ultimately decide to take his talents to the University of Kentucky. As a freshman, MacGinnis would cement his name in the Wildcat record books with records for most points in a season (104), most field goals in a season (21), most extra points in a season without a miss (41 of 41), most kickoff touchbacks in a season (25), longest field goal in school history (54 yards) and consecutive field goals made (9).

Three more successful campaigns at Kentucky would land MacGinnis at the top of the list as the university’s all-time leading scorer (354 points). He would also finish his senior season perfect on extra point attempts hitting 38 kicks in 38 attempts.

MacGinnis earned the Boyd Mcwhorter Postgraduate Scholarship in 2017 on top of earning a degree in finance.

From a Cat to a Bear…to a Financial Advisor

Shortly after his time at the University of Kentucky, MacGinnis would participate in the Chicago Bears mini camp and become one of many kickers going through the revolving door for the Bears franchise struggling to find a solid leg to anchor down their shaky special teams.

Ultimately after numerous, “Thanks for your time” responses, MacGinnis would find himself using his degree as a financial advisor with Salomon & Company in Lexington, Ky. That’s when he would get the call from the now defunct AAF’s Memphis Express.

MacGinnis debut in the AAF would be impressive but short lived as his debut was on February 27th, 2019 but the league would cease operations merely a month later in April of 2019. Out of a job again, until Coach Bob Stoops and the Renegades selected him in the fifth phase of the XFL Draft.

Mr. Perfect

With MacGinnis joining the Renegades, he solidified two things. One, that he is currently the best place-kicker in Dallas based football. Two, the XFL is here to stay.

“We’ve got the funds. They’re not paying crazy the first year or anything crazy. They’re actually trying to build a league that’s sustainable which I think is so important because there’s so many guys that just miss the cut, and if you sit out too long in football, you get rusty, you get passed up. Everyone likes the guys that are coming out of college. It gives those guys, myself included, the ability to put new film out there, keep getting experience playing in live games. We finally got a developmental league for the NFL and I think we’ll see a lot of guys get signed after this season from the XFL to the NFL.” – Austin MacGinnis on the XFL

Trust him. He’s a financial advisor.

Here's the 23-yard chipshot from the league leader in FGs 📺 FOX

💻 https://t.co/mniEka1voR pic.twitter.com/cmbeRkgOl7 — Dallas Renegades (@XFLRenegades) March 7, 2020

MacGinnis not only scored the first points in franchise history against the St Louis Battlehawks, he also leads the entire XFL with 10 field goals made. He is a perfect 10 for 10 on the season. MacGinnis’ XFL career is already off to a hot start. If things continue to stay hot, we could very well see this financial advisor racking up extra points in the NFL soon.

I am a retired softball legend and an unrestricted beer league hockey free agent. I swing sticks for fun on the ice and links and am constantly feeding my YouTube addiction. I am forever grateful to the state of Minnesota for their hockey team in 1994 and more grateful for the Dallas Stars Stanley Cup in 1999.