You've seen it a thousand times. A kicker lines up, the stadium goes silent, and the ball sails toward that yellow fork in the sky. Sometimes it splits the uprights perfectly. Other times, it clangs off the metal with a sound that haunts a fan's dreams for weeks. But have you ever stopped to wonder exactly how wide is the football goal post when you're looking at it from the nosebleed seats?
It looks tiny. Honestly, from the stands, it looks like a toothpick stuck in the ground. Up close, it’s a massive piece of engineering.
In the NFL and college football, the distance between the inside of the uprights is exactly 18 feet, 6 inches.
That’s the standard. It hasn't changed in decades, despite kickers getting better, stronger, and more accurate every single year. If you go down to the high school level, things get a bit more generous. High school goal posts are 23 feet, 4 inches wide. That extra 5 feet or so is a lifesaver for a teenager who is still figuring out how to keep their plant foot steady while 200-pound seniors try to block the kick.
The geometry of a missed field goal
The width is just one part of the story. To really get why kickers struggle, you have to look at the whole "H" shape. The crossbar—that horizontal pipe the ball has to go over—is 10 feet off the ground.
Think about that.
The rim in a basketball game is also 10 feet high. So, a kicker has to loft a pro-sized football over the height of a dunking LeBron James, but do it from 40 yards away while aiming for a gap that is 18.5 feet wide.
In the NFL, the uprights themselves have to extend at least 35 feet into the air. Why so high? Because when a guy like Justin Tucker blasts a kick from 60 yards, the ball is often still rising as it passes the goal line. Officials need that vertical reference to see if the ball stayed inside the "imaginary" plane that extends toward the clouds.
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If the uprights were short, we’d have a dozen controversial calls every Sunday.
College vs. Pro: Is there really a difference?
A common myth is that college uprights are wider than the NFL. People think this because college kickers seem to miss more, or maybe because the college game feels more "amateur."
Nope.
Both the NCAA and the NFL use the 18 feet, 6 inches standard. The "narrow" goal posts are universal once you move past the high school level. This is actually a huge jump for freshmen coming into a big D1 program. Imagine spending four years aiming for a 23-foot target and then suddenly having nearly 5 feet of your safety net stripped away. It changes your mental map of the field.
Why high school is different
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) keeps the posts at 23 feet, 4 inches for a very practical reason: accessibility. Most high school stadiums are multi-purpose. They host football, soccer, and sometimes track events.
The width of a high school football goal post actually matches the width of a standard soccer goal. This makes it easier for schools to install equipment that aligns with existing field markings. Plus, let's be real, high school kickers aren't professional athletes. If the posts were 18 feet wide, half the games would end in 0-0 ties because nobody could hit a field goal.
The "Narrow" goal post experiments
The NFL is a league that loves to tinker. Around 2014 and 2015, there was a lot of chatter about making the goal posts narrower. Why? Because kickers became too good.
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Back in the 1970s, a 50-yard field goal was a miracle. Today, it’s basically expected. During the 2015 Pro Bowl, the NFL actually tested out goal posts that were only 14 feet wide.
It was a disaster for the kickers. Adam Vinatieri, arguably the greatest to ever do it, missed a couple of extra points. The league eventually decided against it for regular-season games, but the fact they even tried shows how much the width dictates the strategy of the game. If the posts were 14 feet wide, teams would stop kicking field goals almost entirely and just go for it on 4th down.
Materials and the "Boink" factor
Modern goal posts aren't just pipes welded together. They are usually made of heavy-duty steel or aluminum, often with a "slingshot" design. This is the single-support post you see that curves back away from the end zone.
Old school posts were H-shaped with two poles going into the ground right on the goal line. This was incredibly dangerous. Players would run a slant route and accidentally knock themselves out on the steel support.
In 1967, the NFL moved the posts to the back of the end zone and shifted to the single-support design. This changed the game's math. Suddenly, a "20-yard line" field goal became a 37-yard attempt (10 yards for the end zone, 7 yards for the snap depth).
When a ball hits the upright today, it doesn't just bounce. The "slingshot" design has a bit of give to it. This can occasionally absorb the ball's momentum and drop it over the bar, or send it flying backward. It’s all physics and luck at that point.
What most fans get wrong about the width
One thing you'll notice if you ever stand on an actual NFL field is how the angle changes. When you're at the 20-yard line, 18.5 feet looks huge. When you're on the left hash mark at the 45-yard line, the goal posts look like a sliver.
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Kickers don't just look at the width; they look at the "window." Because of the hash marks in the NFL (which are narrower than college), the angle is slightly more centered. In college, the wide hash marks mean a kicker might be aiming at the goal posts from a sharp, diagonal angle. This makes that 18 feet, 6 inches feel even narrower than it actually is.
A quick breakdown of widths:
- NFL & NCAA: 18 feet, 6 inches.
- High School (NFHS): 23 feet, 4 inches.
- Arena Football: 9 feet. (Yes, really. It's tiny.)
Arena football is the "expert mode" of kicking. Since the field is only 50 yards long, they shrunk the goal posts to keep the scores from being 100-98 every game. They also hang nets next to the uprights; if a kick misses but hits the net, it’s still live, and the defending team can return it like a punt.
The impact of wind and weather
You can't talk about how wide the goal post is without talking about the air moving through it. Those little orange ribbons tied to the top of the uprights? Those are the most important 4 inches of fabric in sports.
A crosswind of 15 miles per hour can move a football 3 to 5 feet off course over a 40-yard flight. If your target is only 18.5 feet wide, and the wind is pushing the ball 5 feet to the left, your "effective" target width has just been cut in half.
Kickers are essentially calculators in cleats. They have to aim at the "wrong" spot—sometimes yards outside the uprights—hoping the wind will "drift" the ball back into that 18.5-foot gap.
Actionable insights for fans and players
If you're a player or just a dedicated fan trying to understand the mechanics of the game, here is what actually matters regarding goal post width:
- Check the level: If you're practicing at a local park, don't assume the posts are "regulation." Many parks use high school dimensions (23'4"). If you're training for college ball, you need to find a specialized field or use "target nets" that mimic the 18.5-foot width.
- The "Rule of Thumbs": If you're standing on the field, you can estimate the width by extending your arm. At 10 yards away, the goal posts are roughly two hand-widths wide.
- Focus on the center: Elite kickers don't aim for the "gap." They aim for a specific PVC pipe or a person in the stands behind the uprights. Shaving the width down mentally helps them ignore the 18.5-foot limit and focus on a 2-inch target.
- Angle over distance: In college, the wider hash marks mean the angle is your biggest enemy, not the width. Practice from the hashes more than the center.
The goal post hasn't changed much in the last half-century, but our understanding of it has. It remains the ultimate "pass/fail" test in sports. You either have the 18.5 feet or you don't. There are no points for "close" in football.
Next time you see a kicker miss "wide right," remember that they were aiming for a target narrower than most two-car garages, from half a football field away, while 11 people tried to jump in front of them. It puts those "easy" field goals into perspective.
Next steps for deeper understanding:
To truly master the mechanics of the kicking game, you should look into the "K-Ball" regulations. The NFL uses specific, harder balls for kicking that don't compress as easily as the balls used by quarterbacks. This makes hitting that 18.5-foot window even more difficult because the ball doesn't stay on the foot as long during the strike. Check the latest NFL Rulebook under Rule 2, Section 4 for the exact technical specifications of the goal post's offset and "wind direction indicators."